Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health with Daily Tools

- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

where we discuss science

and science-based tools for everyday life.

[upbeat music]

I'm Andrew Huberman,

and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

at Stanford School of Medicine.

Today, we're 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 science backed by quality, peer-reviewed 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 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 are

when students come to the professor's office

or you meet outdoors on campus or in the classroom

to review the material and questions

from lecture in more detail.

Now, unfortunately, 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 comment section on YouTube, et cetera,

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, exercise, sleep, waking,

anxiety, creativity, et cetera-

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 modulating or changes

across the 24 hour a 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,

a family of five children, et cetera,

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 describe 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.

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So 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, et cetera.

As I mentioned 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, et cetera,

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 AM,

6:30, sometimes as late as 7:00 AM.

I don't typically sleep much later than 7:00 AM.

The first thing I do after I wake up is I take the pen

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 typically for 6:30 AM.

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 7:00 AM, 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 informs

what's called my "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 8:00 AM,

then your temperature minimum is sometime around 6:00 AM.

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.

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, et cetera,

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 pass 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.

It 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,

in 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 that 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 author is Mace,

this comes from Botond Roska's group,

this was work done in mice,

but I'll 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 amygdala in 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 amygdala 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.

And 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-reviewed data,

that my amygdala activation is slightly suppressed.

Now, at the same time, I also 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 a 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.

That 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 effect.

Now, in order to get the alertness,

I do it outdoors because I also want sunlight 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 vital

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 functioning of your hormone system,

get your mental health steering in the right direction.

There are a 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 than 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.

Two 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 snowfield,

you would only need something like 60 seconds.

But most 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 organ 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 experience 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 that pulse

of cortisol arrive early in the day.

I want to emphasize this again.

It's very important that that pulse

of cortisol arrive 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, excuse 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's so bright that it feels painful.

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 us 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 costs 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 the same mechanisms apply to animals?

Well, the reality is many of these mechanisms

were actually 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, if you are into aquaria, 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 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 now we have a first protocol,

which is to write down the time of day that you wake up,

the second protocol is to 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.

And I'm sorry to say this,

but they're just vastly overpriced relative

to what they are.

They're basically a bright LED.

I instead use, I have a pad that's a 930-lux LightPad.

I think it was designed for drawing.

Those are available at a fraction of the cost

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 or in front of you.

If you want to go to sleep soon

or you don't want to be awake for whatever reason,

try and eliminate your exposure to light.

And this, again, is not about exposure of the skin 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 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.

In fact, that could have a number

of detrimental consequences.

Fortunately, all those consequences are going

to be reversible 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 at night and in the evening

when you're headed towards sleep.

My colleague Samer Hattar,

who is head of the chronobiology unit

at the National Institute of Mental Health,

has spoken about this before on my Instagram.

We held an Instagram Live and I said,

"Samer, 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

and you're in a bright environment

and you're trying to limit the amount of bright light

that impacts the eyes."

Eliminating specific wavelengths of light,

in Samer's opinion and also in my opinion,

is not a natural thing for the visual system

and 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 view a 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,

excuse 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.

The cells in the eye 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-anistas

to come after me with, I guess, blue blockers,

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

and 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-reviewed 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 force 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 in 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,

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 delay my caffeine intake

to 90 minutes to 120 minutes after I wake up.

Of course, I know when I wake up 'cause 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 buildup

of adenosine or, as some people call it,

adenosine in our system.

The buildup 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 sort of 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 the "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 early or late afternoon,

when that caffeine starts to wear off

and gets dislodged from the receptors,

a lower level of adenosine is able

to create a greater level of sleepiness.

It took me years to figure this out.

I used to wake up and I'd 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 lunch

or I stay up all night the night before.

But provided I don't do anything foolish like that,

delaying caffeine to 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 11:00 AM or 12:00 noon.

I'm not absolutely religious about it.

There are days when I'll have a few Brazil nuts

or a 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, guayusa tea.

Those are my preferred sources

I tend to avoid coffee these days.

Occasionally I'll have a cup,

but most often I stick to the teas.

I drink water as much as I feel 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 "epinephrin" in the brain and body.

And when our levels of epinephrin

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 encode, 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, et cetera,

I fast in the early part of the day.

I mentioned ingesting things like guayusa or yerba mate

or, in my case, athletic greens.

Many people ask, in fact there's a whole community

and discussion boards, et cetera,

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 individual because it's going

to depend on how sensitive your blood sugar.

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 six-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 comes

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 as a vastly different situation

than somebody that ate their last meal at 2:00 AM,

and that meal was essentially a feast.

And for that person,

fasting until 10:00 or 11:00 AM,

their blood sugar might still actually be pretty high

or even lowish such that they might eat one almond

and it would bump them out of fasting.

So you get the idea.

It's going to depend on your recent eating history,

your blood sugar history, your glycogen stores, et cetera.

So if anyone tells you that breaks a fast or that doesn't,

that's kind of silly.

Would one grain of sugar break your fast? No.

Would an entire tablespoon 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 your fast will depend

on how glycogen-depleted you are

and a number of other factors.

So for me, I just keep it fairly simple:

I ingest water, caffeine from your yerba mate and guayusa,

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 are 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

and guayusa teas 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 GLP-1 has a couple of positive properties.

One is it increases lipolysis

and mobilization of body fat stores,

so 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 which mimic GLP-1

and are being used to treat, quite successfully,

certain types of diabetes and obesity.

Now, 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 guayusa,

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,

I'm going to be alert from the caffeine, the adrenaline,

et cetera, and I'm going to burning body fat

while I'm doing my work.

So for me, it's just an efficient, biochemically rational,

or I should say grounded

in quality biochemistry sort of approach.

Yerba mate comes in a lot of different forms.

There are a lot of different brands out there, et cetera.

I don't have any relationship whatsoever

in a business sense to any of these brands.

Some of them are very smoky.

I, 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 smoky stuff.

You may love it,

but I tend to avoid smoky-tasting mates.

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 if she has a park,

and I certainly don't know what 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 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 leaves.

The yerba mate leaves can be used over and over again.

It seems that the GLP-1 stimulating aspects of yerba mate

actually are enhanced with subsequent pour overs.

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 yerba mate 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.

'Cause 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 it or 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.

Now, if you think about it, most people are not doing this.

Most people are looking down at their computer or tablet

or are angling their eyes at their screen

at about 30 degrees.

That is not going to support heightened states of alertness

and optimal attention.

In fact, the opposite relationship

between eye 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's a bi-directional or reciprocal relationship

between the brainstem areas

that control alertness and the eyes,

meaning how alert you are controls

how open or closed your eyes are, no surprise there,

but also the how open and upward directed your eyes are

will increase your levels of alertness

And if your eyes are pointed downward

and your eyelids are hooded,

like they're slowly closing,

like Costello's are always are,

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 workstation where the computer is above me.

I think the only way to really do

that is actually to tilt one's body back,

but actually 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.

What they found is that depending

on how reclined you are or upright you are,

you will decrease with reclining

and increase with sitting forward your levels of alertness.

So body posture and whether or not your 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 upright, 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 in 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 would my hip flexors start to get sore,

I feel tight in the back, et cetera,

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 couldn't figure out what was going on.

I also thought maybe I needed 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

in these protocols in which I would do

a 90-minute about 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, and then 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, et cetera.

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 about 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 to focus.

There will be kind of peaks and valleys within 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 out 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 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 about of work done.

I confess, I don't allow myself to go to the restroom

in 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 brainstem 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 to the bathroom

that you are uncomfortable and can't 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.

Sort of 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 we are focused on something

that 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 it in my car.

I used to 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 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 about

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 the doorbell,

I will often shout,

"Not coming to the 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 I used to spend time,

just cutting very thin slices,

it's like a deli slicer, but for a brain,

of various types of brains.

And I've sectioned 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's 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.

We covered this on the episode on hearing and balance,

but it turns out that white noise,

which is essentially all frequencies of sound,

or 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 involved in 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 showed the areas of the brain that are associated

with dopamine release are increased

by low levels of white noise.

Dopamine release is 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 positioned,

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

in 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 just feels deeply satisfying.

And I'm convinced that that's

because of the release of neuromodulators like 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 will have to respond to,

but I really try and 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 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, et cetera.

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 in which you can place the timing

of this 90-minute work about in an optimal way.

You have access to a very important piece of data

that dictates when this about 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 AM,

well, then your temperature minimum is 5:00 AM.

And you can be reasonably sure,

I want to 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 AM,

that means my temperature minimum is at 4:30 AM.

You can add five hours to that.

So that means that a 90 minute work about could fall

at 9:30 AM and it would be fairly optimized.

Or I could do it at 10:30 AM, or I could do it at 8:30 AM.

Somewhere in there, all right?

That we can't say that it's exactly six 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 relationship

between temperature minimum and focus cognition?

Well, temperature minimum defines the trough,

the nadir, as they say,

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.

And your body will continue to increase in temperature

throughout the day toward the afternoon.

What you're trying to do in this idea

of optimizing this 90-minute work about

to a particular time of day

is catch the portion of the steepest slope

of that temperature rise.

Now, again, you're not walking around with a thermocouple

or a thermometer in some orifice of your body.

So you don't have accurate information about temperature,

but 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 about.

That's about what the brain can handle

for a very intense work about.

Do you 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, where you're going to be entirely focused.

That's entirely normal.

But when to place that 90-minute work about,

when to start it, and when to end it will depend on

that temperature minimum.

So if you're somebody who wakes up at 8:00 AM each morning,

your temperature minimum is 6:00 AM,

chances are you're going to

want to start this work about somewhere around 10:00 AM

or 11:00 AM.

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 de-focus

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 has had 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 about of work,

this 90-minute about of work, I force myself some days,

other days I want to,

but I force myself to do 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 it's structured within the day

and how it's 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 over time

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, et cetera.

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 finished that cognitive work about,

that 90-minute work about,

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 be a 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 50 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 five days per week.

I know that seems like a lot.

It certainly is a lot for certain people.

Some of you, you compulsive exercisers,

might 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 3:2 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 two emphasize endurance.

Then, after 10 or 12 weeks,

one over to a 10- or 12-week regimen of doing a 3:2 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 a lot of data now supporting the fact

that maintaining muscular health

and bone health is supported by resistance training,

weight training of various kinds.

It can also be done with body weight

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 weightlifting or things of that sort in human beings,

but there's 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 is an organ too.

It's the most metabolically 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.

It 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 workout,

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 in 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 exercise is 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 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 this strength and hypertrophy and endurance episodes,

and the literature 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 by running.

And 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,

so cardiovascular function.

That 80/20 rule of less than failure

and work to failure in the resistance exercise regime

can be transported or translated

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,

we'll experience a kind of burning of the muscles

that's associated with the lactate system.

During the episode on endurance,

I pointed out that that burn is not lactic acid.

Contrary to common belief, it is not lactic acid.

It's 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 lactate

or pushing past that lactate threshold for small portion,

20% 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 3:2 ratio.

So maybe you spend 10 weeks or so

or 12 weeks or so focusing mainly on endurance,

where three workouts per week on endurance work,

80% 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, et cetera,

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 and 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 cortisol threshold

is a real thing.

So for me, the 3:2 ratio works out perfectly

'cause 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 who 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 finish 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 a morning about of focused work

to physical training.

I have not mentioned ingesting anything or nutrients.

One of the most common questions I get

are what should I eat for my brain?

Well, ironically enough,

one of the best things you can do

for your brain is to 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 fasted 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

at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies.

I had a colleague there by the name of Satchin 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.

Satchin 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, et cetera, but for cellular health,

liver health, and the 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 do 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 will 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,

related to this adrenaline phenomenon

that we 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-milligram potassium tablet,

all 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 maybe half a teaspoon of sea salt

with a 99-milligram potassium tablet

or these days I'm fond of taking what's called "LMNT."

L-M-N-T. LMNT.

I learned about this from Lex Friedman's podcasts.

I know many of you are familiar with Lex,

has a excellent podcast, excellent scientist.

I don't have any business relationship to LMNT.

They're not a sponsor of the podcast,

but LMNT is a product

that essentially contains electrolytes:

sodium, potassium, as well as magnesium malate,

which has been shown to offset things

like delayed onset muscle soreness.

That form of magnesium doesn't make people drowsy.

It's not an anxiolytic like some other forms of magnesium.

An anxiolytic is just one that reduces anxiety.

So whether or not it's LMNT

or whether or not you're just putting a little bit

of salt into some water and ingesting that prior

to training, 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 my workout,

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 epinephrin,

can reduce that adenosine level in the bloodstream.

So some people use caffeine before training

in ways that benefit them.

It can also increase fat oxidation

and kind of fat metabolism and 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, et cetera.

I am 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,

guayusa, mate, some electrolytes, 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 alpha-GPC 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,

there have been some positive benefits reported

in quality, peer-reviewed journals.

If you want to explore those references,

please go to examine.com,

go please put in alpha-GPC,

go to the Human Effect Matrix,

and there you can find details of those studies,

references to PubMed, et cetera.

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 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 associated 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 some meat or some chicken or some salmon

and some vegetables, et cetera.

And if I've exercised previously,

which I do, as I mentioned, five days a week,

then I will ingest some starches.

I'll in just some red or, bread, excuse 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 inter 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 noonish meal that is not enormous,

but is decent in size, but that is mainly protein,

healthy fats, and lowish carbohydrates

or 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 meats 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 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, et cetera,

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 wellbeing,

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 ingesting 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-3, and I'm certainly one of those people.

Despite an effort to eat good foods and whole foods,

et cetera, and unprocessed foods,

I've made the choice to ingest

at least 1,000 milligrams per day of EPA.

I do that in the form of fish oil

and the EPA-DHA combination fish oil,

but the threshold of 1,000 milligrams

is not 1,000 milligrams of fish oil;

it's 1,000 milligrams of EPA.

Now, for those of you that don't want to consume fish oils

and prefer to get your omega-3s from non-animal sources,

there are non-animal sources,

various forms of algae, et cetera.

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 and thyroid function,

which is why I tend to eat a few Brazil nuts each day

typically with my lunch or sometimes before my workout.

It doesn't really matter.

The point is that the volume, the amount,

the content, and indeed the ratios of protein to fat

to 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 Satchin Panda

and his colleagues' work has shown over and over again

in these quality studies.

So when 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;

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 of bone

and the repair and the buildup 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 wellbeing,

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, et cetera.

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 as 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 of things

that I do that, at least from my blood work

and from my subjective experience,

have been very beneficial for me

that some of you might want to consider.

First of all, I am not shy about my love for butter.

I will eat packs 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 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.

Butter also has some other things that are beneficial,

various small fatty acids that are

that are interesting in terms of their effects

on metabolism, et cetera.

You can look those up, benefits of butter.

But again, volume is important and you can't overdo it.

Costello incidentally loves butter as well.

Along the lines of hormones and testosterone,

I 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.

I 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,

prevents 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 it can 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 "tongkat ali,"

which is a form of ginseng,

can actually help increase levels of free testosterone.

Many people experience a positive subjective effect

and some objective affects 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 literatures,

and again, always approach these with a sense of caution

and definitely talked to your doctor.

If you want to learn more about that,

you can go to examine.com.

There's a lot of information there listed 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 Fadogia.

Fadogia agrestis is actually an herb

that increases the levels

of what's called "luteinizing hormone."

Luteinizing hormone is a hormone

that's released from the hypothalamus

within the brain that travels to the gonads,

either the ovaries or the testes,

to stimulate the release of estrogen or testosterone.

And Fadogia agrestis 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 mid-day 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 30 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 also gets 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, et cetera,

are supported by our cells knowing where they are in time,

and light is the primary zeitgeber,

that's German for "timekeeper,"

is the primary way in which the body learns information

or about what function should be turned on

and what functions 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 performance 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 NSDR 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 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's 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 has 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 involve any movement.

No down dogs or up dogs or anything.

It just involves lying on your back

and doing some specific long exhale breathing.

There are a lot of yoga nidra scripts out there

that are quite good.

But there's one NSDR 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've become increasingly excited

and interested in hypnosis as a tool,

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 NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, protocol

from things like naps or things like yoga nidra

or things like meditation.

And I certainly believe and understand

that meditation naps and yoga nidra can be directed

toward less anxiety, et cetera,

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 reveri.com.

That's R-E-V-E-R-I.com.

reveri.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 Reveri,

you will find hypnosis protocols for enhancing your focus,

enhancing creativity, reducing pain,

getting better at sleeping, 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 Jiang et al.

J-I-A-N-G.

That is a reference you can find

on the reveri.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 is sort of the way that your brain idles,

does your brain tend to idle

at a level of high anxiety or calm,

as well as activation of

a brain area called the "insula."

That's I-N-S-U-L-A.

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 brain

that are responsible for deep relaxation, focus,

and self-awareness, this interoception, simultaneously.

And that's very unusual compared to other states,

any 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 what I've found is that in contrast to naps

and in contrast to other forms of NSDR,

it really allows me to enter a state of deep relaxation,

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, et 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 Reveri provides is not stage hypnosis.

This 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 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 NSDR protocol,

and so I do that every single day.

There are days that I don't manage to do it

for whatever reason.

I forget or interference from email or et cetera.

But that is essentially how I enter my early afternoon.

I do this post-lunch, post-walk NSDR

in the form of a Reveri hypnosis.

Again, a completely zero-cost resource to you.

There are excellent data.

All those data can be found on the Reveri 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-backed, 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,

I usually give Costello 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 in the afternoon

when normally I would be quite sleepy and passing out.

However, the protocol of shifting my morning caffeine

to 90 minutes to 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 2:00 or 3:00 PM.

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 science.

Stanford has an excellent sleep clinic.

I consulted with Jamie Zeitzer,

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.

He 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 asleep 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 obey.

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 nap for 10, 20 minutes,

that's probably better than getting a full 90-minute 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,

a key 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 10:00 PM and 4:00 AM,

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 Berson's lab at Brown University,

one of the foremost circadian biology laboratories,

as well as Samer Hattar's laboratory

at the National Institute of Mental Health

that viewing bright light, or even not so bright light,

between these hours of 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM

or even 10:00 PM and 4:00 AM 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 4:00 PM, 5:00 PM,

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'd be lovely if you could, sunsets are beautiful,

but if you can get outside and see the sun as it arcs down,

or if you can't see the sun directly,

get some sunlight in your eyes in the afternoon hours,

so maybe 4:00 PMish, 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 and 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 five 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 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 blockers at four o'clock

in the afternoon 'cause 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, et cetera,

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 technology

that exists, which is your nervous system.

You know, we always think about technologies as devices,

and indeed there are 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 brainwaves

and things of that sort.

But what 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 to 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 every day 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 schedule,

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 "optimize" you.

When I say "optimize,"

I mean it puts you into a better mood overall,

better state for learning, et cetera.

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 eat 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 realized that starchy carbohydrates are kind

of a demonized term nowadays and everyone's anti-carbs,

but, you know, we really should distinguish

between refined 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 sense 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 aficionados called

"the vagus nerve" and a little cluster

of neurons called the "nodose ganglia."

N-O-D-O-S-E.

Nodose ganglias are right next to the corner of your jaw

and can trigger the activation

and 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's a pediatric endocrinologist

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 towards 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

or the structure of sleep.

It 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, 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, or I hope you are,

'cause it's so beneficial to one's health,

that's also going to replenish my glycogen stores,

which is one of the primary fuel sources

for moving one's 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 realized that some people will do much better

on a low-carbohydrate or even ketogenic diet,

but for me, and I do believe for most people,

creating a situation of maybe fasting,

and then low-carb or no-carb diets

for states of alertness and focus

at one portion of the day,

and then ingesting 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 substance, this thing can support my brain,

not directly because it's some 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 and quality.

One way to do that is to leverage the drop in temperature

that's necessary to fall and stay asleep.

So I mentioned 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,

our temperature peaks,

and then it starts to drop.

That drop in temperature of one to three 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 counterintuitive 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 or hot bath, and then get out,

your body is going to engage particular mechanisms

for cooling 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, 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 in all the details,

you can look at the episode on 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 timestamped,

it's all captioned in English and Spanish, et cetera.

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,

and then get back into the sauna, then get out,

and then shower, dry off, and head to bed.

Shorter bouts of sauna 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 of various tissues.

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 number 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,