0:00

What's up my Impact Theory family? It's

0:02

Tom Billieu and I want to take

0:04

a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude

0:07

to you guys, our incredible listeners. Your

0:09

support, your feedback, your unwavering commitment

0:12

to your own growth inspires and

0:14

drives us every day and

0:16

I want you guys to know how

0:18

important you are to all of us

0:20

here, especially me. And for those voracious

0:22

listeners you know who you are, I've

0:25

got something really exciting to share with

0:27

you. If you're truly dedicated to achieving

0:29

greatness, check out the Extra Impact Subscription

0:31

channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts

0:33

and Supercast. With the Extra

0:35

Impact Subscription you'll get all

0:38

new episodes delivered ad-free exclusive

0:40

access to bonus content including

0:42

keynote speeches, AMAs,

0:44

weekly motivation and previously

0:46

unreleased episodes. And

0:49

you'll also have subscriber-only access

0:51

to five additional podcast playlists

0:53

with hundreds of archived Impact

0:56

Theory episodes curated into themes

0:58

to help you streamline your

1:01

transformation journey. So if you're ready to

1:03

take your personal growth journey to the

1:05

next level, head over to Apple Podcasts

1:08

Supercast or check the links in the

1:10

show notes and subscribe to the Extra

1:12

Impact Subscription. It's your key to unlocking

1:15

the greatness within you. Thank you guys

1:17

again so much for being a part

1:19

of this incredible community. Remember the world

1:21

needs more people that have come alive

1:24

double down on your own improvement and

1:26

you will be shocked at

1:28

how far you can go. Alright until next time my

1:30

friends, be legendary. I'm

1:35

Jason Palmer, one of the hosts of

1:37

the Intelligence, The Economist's daily current affairs

1:39

podcast. The Economist's award-winning

1:41

shows make sense of what matters.

1:43

From our special series on China's

1:45

president to our weekly podcasts on

1:47

business, technology and American politics, our

1:50

journalists provide fair, in-depth reporting on

1:52

the events shaping the world. To

1:55

get the annual plan for less than

1:57

$2.50 per month, search for Economist Podcasts

1:59

Plus. to start listening today. As

2:03

a major research institution, Arizona State

2:05

University offers the most online bachelor's

2:07

degree programs along with world-class faculty

2:10

and dedicated support. Discover why ASU

2:12

is ranked number one in innovation

2:14

for nine consecutive years. Tap to

2:16

learn more. Hey everybody,

2:19

welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest

2:21

is Dr. Andrew Huberman. He's a

2:23

lab director and professor of neuroscience

2:25

at Stanford University who has won

2:28

numerous awards for his work including

2:30

the Pew Biomedical Scholar Award and

2:32

the McKnight Neuroscience Scholar Award. He

2:34

also serves on the editorial board

2:36

of several prestigious journals including Current

2:39

Biology, the Journal of Comparative Neurology,

2:41

Cell Reports, and many, many others.

2:44

And welcome to the show, Dr. Huberman.

2:47

Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to

2:49

be here. As I

2:51

was saying before we started rolling in,

2:53

the brain neuroscience is my area of

2:55

absolute fascination. This was the thing that

2:57

ended up taking me from sliding towards

2:59

depression, feeling lost, feeling frustrated, not knowing

3:01

how to make anything in my life.

3:03

This is in the late 90s, so

3:05

people were debating whether

3:07

neuroplasticity was real. Carol Dweck had not

3:09

written her seminal book on growth mindset

3:11

yet, so I had to cobble a

3:13

lot of this stuff together. But then

3:15

once I did, it was absolutely

3:18

transformative for my life. I'm

3:20

super interested in something you said

3:23

which is ultimately our thoughts or

3:25

a choice. I'd love to start

3:27

with that. I'd love to start with your

3:29

sort of, I think, really insightful definition about

3:31

what a growth mindset really is. Yeah,

3:34

well, first of all, Carol is a wonderful

3:37

colleague and friend. And so we've

3:39

been doing a bit of work on the

3:41

neuroscience of growth mindset among other states of

3:44

mind. So, you

3:46

know, the study of neuroscience is really

3:48

about what the nervous system does. And

3:50

amazingly enough, the nervous

3:52

system is responsible for everything that happens to

3:55

us from the time that we're born until

3:57

the time we die. But that's what we do.

4:00

that really boils down to only five things.

4:02

The nervous system has the

4:05

responsibility of sensation, so

4:07

sensing the physical events in the environment. We

4:09

have these so-called receptors in the eyes, in

4:11

the ears, in the nose, in the mouth,

4:13

on the skin, that take

4:16

physical entities in the universe that are

4:18

real fixed non-negotiable things, like sound waves

4:20

and photons of light, and

4:22

chemicals in the environment traveling that

4:25

make it into our nose and things like that, and

4:27

convert those into the second thing, which

4:30

is perceptions. So the

4:32

nervous system's responsibility is to

4:34

take those sensations, which are

4:36

non-negotiable, and perceive certain

4:39

ones and not others. So for instance,

4:41

right now, until I say, you

4:43

know, what's the sensation of your feet contacting

4:45

the floor or the bottoms of your shoes?

4:47

You weren't thinking about it, but those pressure

4:49

receptors were being engaged the entire time. So

4:52

your perception is like a

4:54

window or a spotlight that's very much

4:57

linked to attention. Then there

4:59

are emotions, often called feelings.

5:02

And those are really designed to

5:04

push us down particular avenues

5:06

of perception and the next

5:09

thing, which are thoughts. Okay, so

5:12

we've got sensation perception, feelings, and

5:14

then there are thoughts, which really have

5:16

a lot to do with what we're perceiving

5:18

and the way we're organizing those perceptions, what

5:21

they mean, and generally that's put into the context

5:23

of what we already know or memories. And

5:26

then the fifth thing is behaviors, and

5:29

of course, neurons are responsible for generating actions, and

5:31

there are really two kinds of actions. There

5:33

are the actions that you generate reflexively, like your

5:36

breathing and your heart rate right now are largely

5:38

reflexive, or you could decide troll

5:40

of your respiration and make

5:42

it voluntary, right, and not just reflexive.

5:45

So those five things, sensations, perceptions,

5:47

feelings, thoughts, and actions, really encompass

5:49

all of our life experience.

5:51

And that's from the very

5:53

mundane of getting up in the morning and

5:55

brushing your teeth, to the most awe-inspiring, goal-motivated,

6:00

Pinnacle moments of your life the

6:02

nervous system not the immune system

6:05

not the digestive system all which are important but

6:07

the nervous system in the brain spinal cord in

6:09

the connections with the body in the connections from

6:11

the body back to the brain and spinal cord.

6:14

Responsible for all of that and

6:16

i just a final point the

6:19

nervous system is also responsible for telling

6:21

the immune system something is very relevant

6:23

right now in this. COVID

6:25

pandemic when to be active

6:27

you know we don't often think about the

6:29

immune system is governed by anything but

6:32

it's actually governed by the nervous

6:34

system. Yeah one thing

6:36

that i find really interesting is

6:38

the way that the. In

6:41

fact it'll be interesting to hear your take on

6:43

this so i think of the brain as basically

6:45

creating a virtual reality environment that were engaging

6:48

in now it's a very usable virtual environment

6:51

that i can walk around without bumping into

6:53

too much shit like you said i can

6:55

translate. You know the things that

6:57

are floating around in the air into a sense of

6:59

smell i can navigate the world

7:01

based on what i see and hear and smell

7:04

and taste and all of that stuff but at

7:06

the end of the day it really is all

7:08

happening. In this enclosed

7:10

dark skull and the

7:12

brain itself doesn't ever actually interact with

7:14

white it doesn't interact with sound waves

7:17

it's all an interpretation of that. Which

7:21

i find really interesting and i find it really

7:23

interesting with that plays out into our lives how

7:25

do you think about that is somebody who is

7:28

literally lifting a brain out of

7:31

somebody's i would assume deceased.

7:33

Head you know that you have such a tactile relationship

7:37

with the brain. Yeah so

7:39

you said something really important which

7:41

is that you know we're essentially just this

7:43

collection of cells and yet. Everything

7:45

is organized this almost video game virtual

7:47

reality like version of the world so

7:50

the way that neuroscientists think about the

7:52

sorts of things nowadays is in the following way. That

7:55

you're absolutely right tom everything

7:57

about life experience. is

8:00

an abstraction and the brain as

8:02

a language it's creating an abstract representation

8:05

of everything that's out there in the

8:07

world. Everything and

8:09

that might seem sort of obvious to some of

8:12

your listeners but when you think about it that's

8:15

perhaps one of the most interesting and

8:17

profound features of. Life in

8:19

general the galaxy is any organism because

8:22

somehow your abstractions and my abstractions and

8:24

the abstractions of the brains of all

8:26

your listeners are able to converge on

8:28

some kind of a common meaning at

8:30

least in many cases about what these

8:32

words mean or what different

8:34

events in the natural world mean. Now objects

8:37

fall down they don't generally

8:39

fall up so there are some rules that

8:41

we learn very early on that are obvious

8:44

right. But there are some other rules

8:46

that are less obvious that come

8:48

about when we start thinking about things like

8:50

growth mindset and what's rewarding what is punishing

8:52

what it means to lean in hard to

8:55

a problem or what creativity is. But I

8:57

want to just mention there's one exception to

8:59

all this which is. Very

9:01

interesting and it happens to be the one that my lab

9:04

works on so I am biased in this regard but

9:06

there's one piece of your brain. That

9:09

is outside your skull in

9:11

fact you have to ever the rest of your

9:13

central nervous system is inside your skull and spinal

9:15

cord except lining the back of your eye is

9:17

the neural retina which is three cell layers thick

9:20

meaning it's about thick as a credit card. And

9:23

the neural retina is not attached to the

9:25

brain it is brain. The

9:28

cells in in the neural retina were

9:30

deliberately place during development they got pushed

9:32

out of the skull and deliberately

9:34

to sense light events in the

9:37

environment and not just the shapes.

9:39

Of things and what's moving around out there

9:42

but fundamentally to tell the rest of the

9:44

brain and nervous system when to be alert

9:46

and when to be asleep based on how

9:48

much light is in the environment and

9:51

the quality of that light so

9:53

viewing morning sunlight. Around

9:56

the time of sunrise as well

9:58

as evening sunlight around the time. a sunset,

10:00

not just at sunrise and sunset, but

10:02

near those times, a couple hours on

10:04

either side, is fundamental

10:06

for instructing the brain of special collection of

10:09

neurons right above the roof of the mouth,

10:11

which then instructs all the cells of the

10:13

body when to be active. It's sort of

10:15

like you're a factory and you need your

10:17

digestion to work on a particular schedule and

10:19

you need your spleen to work on another

10:21

schedule. And it's morning light

10:23

and evening light in particular. And

10:26

the cells that do this, they

10:29

pay attention not to blue light. Everyone's kind of

10:31

obsessed with blue light as it relates to this

10:33

stuff. Wrong. That's only half

10:35

the equation. It's the contrast

10:37

between yellow light and blue light.

10:39

So in the morning and at

10:41

sunset, yellows are getting

10:44

brighter. Watch a sunrise or sometime

10:46

or sunset. And blues are getting

10:48

darker and that contrast is relayed

10:50

to the brain. You don't perceive

10:52

it. Even blind people can transmit

10:54

this information into the brain. And

10:57

it says, make a cortisol pulse early

10:59

in the day to give you energy

11:02

and agitate your body to go be active. And

11:05

then it times the onset of the melatonin pulse in

11:07

the evening, which is going to put you to sleep.

11:10

And so when we think about the brain and

11:12

the nervous system being isolated, it is isolated. But

11:14

as much as it's a machine and a collection

11:16

of cells, they need to work together and they

11:19

need to know when to be active. And so

11:21

it's viewing of morning sunlight in particular and evening

11:23

sunlight in particular that anchors everything that goes on

11:25

from the top of your skull to the bottom

11:28

of your feet in terms of this basic thing

11:30

of when to be alert and when to be

11:32

asleep. And screens, but not

11:34

just screens and not just blue light,

11:36

making their way into the hours of

11:38

say 11 PM to 4

11:40

AM, do just the opposite.

11:43

There was a paper published in cell,

11:45

an excellent journal, showing that

11:48

bright light activation between 11 PM and 4

11:51

AM sends a signal

11:53

from the eye to a brain structure called

11:55

the habenula. The name doesn't matter, but it

11:57

kicks off a disappointment circuit. It starts suppressing.

12:00

dopamine and the habenula

12:02

is linked to the pancreas, right?

12:04

The brain-body connection and starts dysregulating blood

12:07

sugar. So the key point is it,

12:09

why does it trigger

12:11

disappointment? Yeah. So this

12:13

is very interesting. So every circuit in the brain

12:15

has a push and a pull. So we have

12:17

a reward system for viewing light at the particular

12:19

times of day, which are morning and

12:22

evening and during the day and avoiding bright

12:24

lights in the middle of the night. But

12:26

there's a punishment signal, literally. A

12:28

chemical punishment signal whereby dopamine, which is

12:30

this feel-good molecule that's essential for things

12:33

like growth mindset and pursuit of goals

12:35

and well-being of all sorts,

12:37

is suppressed when human beings

12:40

or animals view bright

12:42

light in the middle of this

12:44

dark phase of the circadian cycle, which is between

12:46

11 p.m. and 4 a.m.

12:48

approximately. And so nature does

12:51

this. It creates rewards for doing the

12:53

right things that move you in the

12:55

direction of general adaptation and wellness. And

12:57

it punishes you. Mother Nature is kind of

12:59

a double-edged sword. She's very benevolent when she

13:02

wants to be, but if you don't obey

13:04

her rules, she punishes you too. And

13:06

so you have circuits in the brain

13:08

that are pro-depressive. And this

13:10

light viewing from 10 p.m.

13:12

to 4 a.m. kicks off

13:15

a pro-depressive circuit. And

13:17

there are real... That's a great thing. I want to

13:19

get into some of the other things that are pro-depressive

13:21

as well. But before we do that, one thing that

13:24

I really want to anchor us to is what

13:27

you were saying. You're saying that people have an

13:29

oversimplified view of what a growth mindset is. You

13:31

were just talking about that in relationship to dopamine.

13:34

Give us your sort of brief nutshell

13:36

version of what a growth mindset really

13:38

is. Yeah. So Carol

13:40

and I have had a lot of discussions about this idea of, yet,

13:43

I'm not there yet, but that I can't

13:45

get there. That's the whole principle behind growth

13:47

mindset. However, the discovery of

13:49

growth mindset is worth thinking about.

13:52

So Carol's discovery was these kids

13:54

that, for whatever reason, like

13:58

doing math problems, they knew they couldn't

14:01

get the answers right. These were sure-fail problems. So

14:03

it's the same kind of people that like doing

14:05

puzzles, and these kids not surprisingly

14:07

go on to do phenomenally well in a

14:09

number of different areas of academic pursuit. But

14:13

what's interesting about growth mindset is that it

14:15

seems like there's some attachment of

14:17

the reward systems of the brain to

14:19

the action or

14:22

the pursuit of a goal, not just achieving

14:24

a goal. And when we step back

14:26

and we look at what that

14:28

really entails at a neurochemical level, we

14:30

have reward systems in the brain. They generally fall

14:32

into two categories. They're the reward systems

14:34

that make you feel really good with kind of the

14:37

here and now and everything that's within the confines of

14:39

your skin and the things you already have. You know,

14:41

love of your dog, love of your spouse, gratitude

14:44

for all the things you happen to have. And

14:47

those are generally governed by the release

14:49

of molecules like serotonin and oxytocin. But

14:53

then there's another reward system, which is the one

14:55

that drove a lot of human evolution, which is

14:57

the dopamine reward system. Now dopamine

14:59

is a very misunderstood molecule. It's

15:01

often talked about only in the context of

15:04

reward, like I'm going to work to this

15:06

goal. I'm going to build my

15:08

company. I'm going to get tenure as a press, whatever it

15:10

is, and you reach it and you get this dopamine reward.

15:12

And indeed that's true. But what's

15:14

often not discussed is that dopamine

15:16

is secreted en route to rewards

15:18

while you pursue rewards. Now

15:22

the ability to tap into that system,

15:25

to subjectively amplify that pathway

15:27

of reward in pursuit of

15:29

goals is an absolute game

15:31

changer when it comes to things like anything

15:34

challenging of long duration or

15:36

uncertainty or getting through this

15:39

COVID pandemic situation. But

15:41

the amazing thing is, remember, the brain only does

15:44

five things and we get to decide which of

15:46

those sensations and perceptions have relevance and which ones

15:48

don't or which ones are attached to a goal

15:50

and which ones aren't. So growth

15:53

mindset in its purest form is

15:55

the attachment of these reward systems to

15:58

the effort process, to the friction. process

16:00

and not just to obtaining a reward.

16:03

And just as a kind of final point to that, there's

16:05

a very well-known body of

16:07

literature in neuroscience, at least among neuroscientists,

16:10

that talks about something called reward prediction

16:12

error. And it says if

16:14

you can dose the dopamine subjectively

16:17

as you go through the pursuit of something

16:19

and then have a lot of dopamine when

16:21

you reach that thing, it's very likely that

16:24

you're going to reinforce that circuit. There will

16:26

be neural plasticity and that circuit will become

16:28

stronger. So the next time you will revisit

16:30

those sets of behaviors. The opposite

16:32

can happen too, where you're in real

16:34

anticipation of something, this is going to be great, this

16:36

is going to be great, this is going to be

16:39

great, and then you reach that goal and it's kind

16:41

of underwhelming. And that generally triggers this circuit

16:43

that I referred to earlier, this kind

16:45

of disappointment or pro-depressive circuit. So

16:48

dopamine is involved

16:50

in reward, but it's also involved in the

16:52

pursuit of rewards. As

16:54

you reach a milestone or as you tell

16:56

yourself, I'm on the right

16:59

track, this friction I'm feeling, this late

17:01

night, this early morning, this hard conversation

17:03

with somebody that doesn't feel good, I'm

17:05

going to tell myself this is for

17:07

a larger purpose, that's that

17:09

subjective insertion, that abstraction that we were

17:11

talking about earlier. And when you

17:13

start releasing dopamine to those kinds of things, there's

17:16

essentially no limit on

17:18

the number of things you can

17:20

do or the energy to do them. So just as

17:22

a last point about dopamine,

17:25

when we're in effort, we're always secreting

17:27

adrenaline, we're always in pursuit and it's

17:29

draining, it's tiring. Dopamine

17:31

has this beautiful capacity to buffer

17:33

adrenaline. And you know this, you've

17:35

experienced this before because if you've

17:37

ever been working really, really hard,

17:39

maybe your team is depleted, everything's

17:41

just a mess and somebody cracks

17:43

a joke and all of

17:46

a sudden in an instant, it's like

17:48

everything's reframed. That couldn't have been hormonal,

17:50

hormones work on the schedule of

17:52

like hours to days to weeks, it

17:54

had to be neurochemical, it absolutely

17:56

had to be neurochemical and that neurochemical is

17:59

dopamine. Dude, what you just

18:01

described is literally the scientific breakdown of

18:03

how you turn your life around. I

18:05

would just tell people that that subjective

18:07

insertion is one of the most powerful

18:10

concepts I have ever heard in neuroscience.

18:12

You're the only one I've ever heard

18:14

articulated that succinctly. Now, you talk

18:16

a lot about meaning. Walk me

18:18

through like the how we assign meaning,

18:20

how we leverage the reward and punishment

18:23

to really get us in a

18:26

situation where we can push through something other people might not

18:28

be able to push through. When

18:30

you start thinking about things like growth

18:32

mindset in terms of how they convert

18:35

to neurochemical signatures, it leads us

18:37

to this place of, okay, if it's all subjective, then

18:39

if I just say, look, I'm going to stand up out

18:42

of my chair and that's going to feel amazing, is that

18:44

going to work? Well, no, it depends on the meaning that

18:46

I attach to something. This subjective

18:48

part can be a little tricky and a little bit

18:50

hard for people. I want to try and lay it

18:52

out in a concrete way so that if they want

18:54

to apply this, they can. Incidentally,

18:57

or not so incidentally, I should say, when

18:59

you look at communities of very high performers,

19:02

and I'm fortunate enough to do some consulting

19:04

with some people from special forces

19:06

communities and so forth, they're very good,

19:08

as are you, at attaching

19:10

a reward to specific

19:12

behaviors in subjective ways. So growth

19:15

mindset and these dopamine rewards that

19:17

we subjectively apply are not about

19:20

saying, oh, you know, I had

19:22

a terrible day, I performed poorly, but you

19:24

know what, it's great. I just feel great

19:26

anyway. It's not about that. It's

19:28

not about attaching your sense of reward

19:30

to the ultimate goal. It's

19:33

about attaching your sense of reward to the

19:35

fact that you're making action steps that are

19:37

generally in the right direction. The more you

19:39

can reward the effort process, the

19:42

better off you are at building these kinds

19:44

of neural circuits and these kind of tendencies

19:46

to be able to lean into anything challenging

19:48

over essentially any duration. So how

19:50

does this work? Like, how would somebody do this, right?

19:53

Well, keeping in mind that adrenaline and

19:55

epinephrine are all great for getting us

19:57

into action. This is Mother Nature's way

19:59

of chemically making us feel kind of agitated?

20:01

Remember, stress was designed to agitate us, to

20:03

move us away from things and toward things.

20:06

But realizing that that's a limited

20:08

resource, that eventually that same chemical

20:11

is what makes you have

20:13

a negative mindset. It feels painful. It's the

20:15

burn in your body. It's uncomfortable. And

20:18

realizing that dopamine can push back on that neurochemically.

20:20

It can suppress those sensations of wanting to quit.

20:22

You say, well, then how do I get this

20:24

dopamine to work for me before I hit a

20:27

goal? Because not every day is going to be

20:29

a real win. There's some days, I mean, I

20:31

know from my science career, there were days that

20:33

were really hard, experiments didn't work, papers got rejected.

20:35

And yet, you know, I've spent two decades or

20:38

more just drilling on and drilling on. And

20:40

it's been a sheer pleasure at times. But there's

20:42

been, you know, some pain points along the way.

20:45

So what is this process really about?

20:47

And how would somebody implement these dopamine and

20:49

epinephrine type neurochemical events in their own life?

20:52

Well, we all know the example of like

20:54

wanting to run a marathon. I've never run

20:56

a marathon, but that'd be

20:58

a nice goal to have. Let's say tomorrow morning,

21:00

I set my shoes near the door. Now,

21:02

a lot of people have talked about this day one, you set your

21:04

shoes near the door, day two, you go out the door, day three,

21:07

you run around the block day four. But the

21:09

key thing is not just to go

21:11

through the actions. But when you hit

21:13

each one of those self designated milestones,

21:15

the milestones that you're setting out for

21:17

yourself, you have to pause for a

21:19

moment and tell

21:22

yourself, I'm heading in the

21:24

right direction, I haven't run the marathon yet.

21:26

But this is the foundation upon

21:28

which I'm going to lay another foundation

21:30

upon which I'm going to lay another

21:32

foundation. And those little pulses of dopamine

21:34

allow you to get that action step

21:36

without the depletion that it would normally

21:38

bring. Otherwise, you're like you're spending money.

21:40

This is like replenishing this bank account

21:42

that you have. And it's a neural

21:44

bank account. And so dopamine is the

21:46

thing that you can control the dosing

21:48

of. And so if you say, today,

21:51

it's my shoes at the door. But tomorrow,

21:53

it's around the block. And that's it. But that's

21:55

in the direction I want to go. What you

21:58

do is you now get those two events

22:00

plus the next day, the mile long runners

22:03

and so forth without it depleting

22:05

you. It actually builds

22:07

this capacity to build more reward. This

22:09

is what you've done. This is what people

22:12

from Elite Special Forces can do. They know

22:14

how to make small, simple,

22:17

physical steps in the real world that

22:19

allow them to build on these reward circuitry, but

22:21

they don't get delusional about how they're doing. They

22:25

keep the end in mind, but they get

22:27

very micro. They move the horizon in very

22:29

close. If you can

22:31

move the horizon to something you know you can

22:34

complete and you reward that, you

22:36

essentially are where you were before.

22:39

You're just as strong, if not stronger, but you're heading in

22:41

the direction you need to go. You're

22:43

not depleting. You're not spending out anything. It

22:45

feels a little weird because none of us

22:47

like to reward things that aren't external, but

22:49

the ability to control these internal reward schedules

22:52

is everything. Are you ready to

22:54

scale your business in 2024, but you know

22:56

there are some things that just aren't working?

22:58

Your teams are probably bogged down in manual

23:01

processes and slowed down by inefficiencies that you

23:03

know you need to change if you really

23:05

want to grow in a sustainable way. Now

23:08

if that sounds like you, you should know these

23:10

three numbers. 37,000,

23:12

25, 1. 37,000,

23:16

that's the number of businesses which have upgraded

23:19

to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite

23:22

turns 25 this year, that's 25 glorious

23:25

years of helping businesses do more with

23:27

less, and

23:31

drive down costs. One,

23:33

because your business is one of a

23:35

kind, so you get a customized solution

23:37

for all of your KPIs in one

23:39

efficient system with one source of truth.

23:42

Manage risk, get reliable forecasts,

23:44

and improve margins. NetSuite

23:47

is giving you the power of having all

23:49

your information in one place, helping you to

23:51

make better, more driven decisions as a business

23:53

owner. Everything you need to grow, all

23:56

in one place. And you really can't put

23:58

a price on the power and efficiency. If

24:00

you are blind you will crash. If

24:02

you understand exactly what's going on in

24:05

your business then you have a shot.

24:07

Right now download NetSuite's popular

24:10

KPI checklist designed to give

24:12

you consistently excellent performance absolutely

24:15

free at netsuite.com/theory. That's

24:18

netsuite.com/theory. Click on the

24:20

link in the show

24:23

notes or go directly

24:25

to netsuite.com/theory to get

24:27

your own KPI checklist.

24:30

Again it's free.

24:33

Go to netsuite.com/theory.

24:37

This episode is brought to you by One

24:39

Skin. If you're like myself and my wife

24:41

and do everything right to take care of

24:43

your body or at least almost everything you

24:46

will still age. Sadly it is a

24:48

fact and while scientific advancements are rapidly

24:51

moving us to a place where we

24:53

will one day be able to reverse

24:55

aging. Oh man I hope. But

24:57

for right now we all have

24:59

to deal with it. And one of

25:02

the most obvious places aging shows up

25:04

is in our skin but not. All

25:06

is lost my friends. There are emerging

25:08

solutions based on rigorous research and science

25:10

that help reverse the aging of your

25:12

skin at the cellular level. Things

25:14

like One Skin. After testing over

25:17

900 peptides One Skin

25:19

developed the OS One peptide

25:21

that is scientifically proven to

25:23

deactivate zombie cells that are

25:25

no longer functioning correctly due

25:27

to age. Literally reversing your skin

25:30

cells biological age. Now I'm not usually a

25:32

skincare guy but I was compelled by the

25:34

science and wanted to give their eye cream

25:36

a shot. And I have to say within

25:38

just a few days I started noticing a

25:41

slight difference in the skin underneath my eyes

25:43

which is a big problem for me. Now

25:46

you guys can try it. For a limited

25:48

time Impact Theory listeners can get 15% off

25:50

One Skin products using the code impact15

25:55

at oneskin.co. Again

25:58

see it for yourself with 15%

26:00

off at oneskin.co and use the code impact15

26:02

at checkout. Take

26:07

care of your skin, boys and girls. Real talk,

26:09

gentlemen. 52% of men

26:11

over 40 experience some form of ED

26:13

by the time they hit 70. Literally

26:16

millions of men with the

26:18

hardships of ED and historically

26:21

there have been few options to help

26:23

keep things alive in the bedroom until

26:25

now. HIMSS is changing men's

26:28

healthcare by providing access to

26:30

discreet and affordable sexual health

26:32

treatments 100% online. There's

26:35

no uncomfortable doctor's visits and no

26:37

insurance is needed. Just answer

26:39

a series of questions on their website

26:41

and a medical provider will determine the

26:43

right treatment option for you. And

26:46

any prescriptions are shipped directly to you

26:48

for free and in nice

26:50

discreet packaging. HIMSS is trusted

26:52

by hundreds of thousands of users so

26:54

if ED is getting you down, it

26:57

is time to make a change. Start

27:00

your free online visit

27:02

today at himss.com/impact that's

27:06

h-i-m-s.com/impact for your

27:08

personalized ED treatment

27:10

option. himss.com/impact. Prescriptions

27:12

require an online consultation with

27:15

a healthcare provider who will

27:17

determine if appropriate restrictions apply.

27:19

See website for details and

27:21

important safety information. Subscription required.

27:23

Prices vary based on product

27:25

and subscription plan. But if

27:28

anything is worth saving, this

27:30

one is. Get after it. One

27:52

thing that you've talked about that I think is along

27:56

these lines, it'd be interesting to see if they feel

27:58

as related to you when you know. much

28:00

about it, but for me at a high

28:02

level, these feel very related. We talked about

28:04

somebody gets in a car accident, acetylcholine, if

28:07

I'm not mistaken, is released. It says, fucking

28:09

pay attention to this. Pay attention right now.

28:12

And it basically responds

28:14

to peaks and valleys. So something really bad

28:16

happens or something really good happens. It's present.

28:19

You begin to hardwire the association

28:21

of whatever emotion is with that

28:23

thing. And so if

28:26

you have something, a traumatic event or

28:28

whatever, and you now see something is

28:30

very negative, you can actually flip that

28:32

by getting in a state where you're

28:34

secreting acetylcholine again and now in a

28:36

positive, right? So that you can feel

28:38

good about that thing. So

28:41

how do people take that, take

28:43

control of that process? So if you've been in

28:45

a car accident and you now have this negative

28:47

association with driving, how do you

28:49

grab ahold of the production of acetylcholine?

28:52

How do you reframe? Yeah. Yeah.

28:55

So it's great you're mentioning acetylcholine. So acetylcholine

28:57

is the neurochemical that we want

28:59

to think about anytime we're talking

29:01

about neural plasticity and in particular,

29:03

attention, high attentional states. So everyone

29:05

knows that the brain is very

29:07

plastic early in life. So from

29:10

birth until about age 25, you

29:12

can learn so much for better

29:14

or for worse. I always say

29:16

the downside is that early in

29:18

life, you have less

29:20

control over your life circumstances but your brain

29:22

is very plastic. So there's a dark

29:25

and light to that. Later in life, you

29:27

have a lot more control generally over your life

29:29

circumstances but the brain becomes less plastic. However, we

29:32

know based on Nobel Prize winning work

29:34

and recent work in addition

29:36

to that, that the neuromodulator,

29:40

acetylcholine is secreted when we pay attention

29:43

to something very specific. It acts as

29:45

sort of a spotlight in the brain,

29:47

making certain synapses, the connections between neurons

29:49

more active and more likely to be

29:52

active again than others. So

29:54

when you hear that song that you love so

29:56

much and it moves you and you feel dopamine

29:58

being pulsed into your body, that's a real

30:00

thing. You're actually getting dopamine secretion. You

30:02

form that deep association with that. And

30:05

acetylcholine draws your attention to that.

30:08

And that song is essentially wired

30:11

in a very indelible way into your nervous system.

30:13

You can probably even with certain songs you can

30:15

feel your body start to energize because of course

30:17

the brain through connections with your

30:19

muscles controls your body. So for

30:22

things that are traumatic or negative, what

30:24

we're really talking about is neuroplasticity that's

30:26

focused on unlearning. And most of the

30:29

therapies for this, whether or

30:31

not it's EMDR, eye movement

30:33

desensitization reprocessing, or it's

30:35

traditional psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, or

30:38

it's somatic embodied release, you

30:40

know, Kundalini breathing type, almost all of

30:42

those are designed to do something which

30:44

is to bring the person or you

30:47

bring yourself into a state

30:49

of heightened alertness, right? You can't do

30:51

this stuff when you're sort of half

30:53

asleep. Heightened alertness and then

30:55

focusing your attention on the

30:57

traumatic or negative event. This is the

31:00

way that works. And then pairing that

31:02

with something new, you know, traditionally, this

31:04

was done with things like NLP or

31:06

in talk therapy where people would feel

31:08

the relation, the positive relationship with the

31:10

therapist that was kind of the main rationale

31:13

in association with this very traumatic sometimes even

31:16

you know, shameful type events. And the idea

31:18

is that you would simultaneously have those two

31:20

experiences the negative one and the feeling of

31:22

safety and you would rewire those circuit entries

31:24

actually believe that can work but it can

31:26

take a lot of times it can

31:28

take a lot of visits to the therapist, which is

31:31

not to say it's bad. It's just not everyone has

31:33

access to those resources. Things

31:35

like eye movement desensitization reprocessing simply

31:37

moving the eyes laterally while recounting

31:39

these negative events. The woman

31:42

who devised this figured

31:44

out that somehow when people

31:46

recount these traumatic experiences when they're doing

31:48

these lateralized eye movements, not vertical eye

31:51

movements, they somehow separate

31:54

out the negative emotions and I thought for years

31:56

people would ask me about this stuff, Tom,

31:58

and I thought this is ridiculous. I'm a

32:00

vision scientist and I work on stress. It's

32:02

like there's no way. And then I really

32:04

ate my words because four papers, two in

32:06

humans, two in mice, and then a fifth

32:08

paper published in Nature, which is kind of

32:11

our super bowl of scientific publishing, showed

32:14

that these lateralized eye movements

32:16

quiet the amygdala. They

32:18

actually suppress activation of this threat detection

32:20

center in the amygdala. Why

32:23

would that be true? Ah, so this is really

32:25

where it gets cool. Turns out, because

32:28

of the way

32:30

that we view the visual world when we move

32:32

through space, when our head moves or when we

32:34

walk and things flow past us, that these lateralized

32:36

eye movements are what

32:38

happens when you move forward in

32:40

space, when you're walking, when you're

32:42

moving forward towards something. And that

32:44

suppresses activation of the

32:46

amygdala. Now you say why? Well,

32:48

okay, so then 2018, my

32:51

laboratory did an experiment. It was actually a

32:53

graduate student in my laboratory where we're looking

32:55

at fear. In this case, we're looking at

32:57

fear to big looming objects that either trigger

33:00

freezing or running and hiding. There's a brain

33:02

area that's in your brain and my brain

33:04

that mice also have that triggers

33:06

a third option, not run and hide, not

33:09

freeze, but forward confrontation. This

33:11

is the, no, I'm going to

33:13

fight. I'm going to move forward in the face of

33:15

adversity. This is the growth mindset. I'm going to lean

33:17

into friction. And it turns out that

33:20

this circuit is linked to the

33:22

dopamine reward pathway. When we move

33:24

forward in the face of a threat, and

33:26

obviously we want to do this in healthy, adaptive

33:29

ways, we suppress activity

33:31

of the amygdala through

33:33

physical action of moving forward. And

33:36

there's a signal sent to the areas of the brain

33:38

that control dopamine reward. Those

33:40

reward centers then trigger

33:42

the release of dopamine to reward forward

33:45

efforts in the face of stress or

33:47

threat. So when you

33:49

hear about people saying, look, take

33:51

some physical action when you're feeling

33:54

exhausted, take some forward physical action

33:56

when you're feeling overwhelmed by this

33:58

traumatic experience. That could be in the

34:00

form of a walk. Now this

34:02

therapist, she figured out with EMDR, because

34:05

you can't take people walking around for

34:07

therapy sessions, she figured out that these

34:09

lateralized eye movements are what

34:11

triggers suppression of the amygdala, and it makes

34:14

perfect sense, because the amygdala, this threat detection

34:16

center in our brain, it doesn't

34:18

connect to the limbs. So how

34:20

does it know if you're moving forward?

34:22

Well, because the eyes are moving. You

34:25

have these reflexive eye movements that move anytime you're

34:27

moving through space. So to

34:29

make this a little more succinct,

34:31

it's really forward movement, action, pushing

34:33

yourself across that threshold, not

34:35

only rewards you, but it suppresses activity of the

34:38

fear centers in the brain. And

34:40

these are ancient hardwired mechanisms. These aren't hacks.

34:42

These are things that Mother Nature installed in us. So

34:45

I love this more than you could possibly

34:47

imagine. This is so

34:50

interesting. One of the

34:52

things that I've heard talked about, I think is

34:54

really powerful is that overcoming

34:57

a fear isn't about diminishing

34:59

the fear response. It's about

35:02

making more robust a sense of being brave

35:04

in the face of that fear. So

35:07

moving forward to translate it to, like you

35:09

say, if your brain is meant to interpret

35:14

stimuli, what, at a

35:17

stimulus level, what is that thing that's

35:19

going to trigger the response? Talk

35:22

about the, I don't know if it was mice

35:24

or rats. I think it was rats, where you

35:26

force them to fight and they're in a tube

35:28

and that study to

35:32

me tied with what you've just

35:34

said is insanely powerful, especially for

35:37

people who've allowed themselves to become

35:39

paralyzed by fear or whatever.

35:42

Forward movement, provided it doesn't endanger you

35:44

or kill you, is absolutely

35:47

the remedy for fear,

35:49

stress, and at

35:51

least in the clinical literature to these trauma

35:53

events that people carry with

35:56

them for many years. Of course, trauma

35:58

needs to be dealt with. with

36:00

a professional, but we can all apply

36:02

these mechanisms and these neurochemical reward schedules.

36:05

So, the study that you're referring

36:07

to is a beautiful one. There's

36:10

a classic study where researchers,

36:12

not my lab, put two rats, or you could do this

36:14

with mice, into a tube, and the tendency is for them

36:17

to try and push one or the other one out. One

36:19

always wins and pushes the other one out. We

36:21

call the one that got pushed out the loser, the one that

36:23

pushed him out the winner. Here

36:26

are the interesting things about this. First

36:28

of all, the winner will tend

36:30

to win in other battles,

36:33

even though these are just pushing battles, more

36:36

because it simply won the time before. The loser,

36:38

by losing, will tend to lose. Some

36:40

people say, oh, that explains a lot about society, etc.

36:43

Here's where it gets really interesting. You

36:46

can even take a mouse or a rat and

36:48

push it from behind and make it the

36:50

winner. Then on subsequent trials where you're

36:52

not pushing it, it will tend to win more

36:54

often. The win doesn't even have to come from

36:56

itself. Last

36:59

year, there was a very important paper published

37:01

about this where a set of

37:03

researchers just said, what is

37:05

it? What is this winning circuit and this losing

37:07

circuit? Enough with the demonstration that this happens, like

37:09

what's happening on, what's under the hood? They

37:12

went into the brain and they identified a

37:15

brain area, which is part of the frontal

37:17

cortex, the area that we typically think about

37:19

planning, action, executive function, all the high-level stuff.

37:22

What they discovered was this

37:24

brain area is more active in

37:26

the winner than

37:29

in the loser. In fact, they could

37:31

take the loser and overstimulate this area

37:33

and turn the losers into winners. Now,

37:36

it gets even more ridiculous than that.

37:38

If you quiet this brain area,

37:40

winners become losers. If

37:45

you take a winner, let's say

37:47

at this tube battle, and you put them into, let's

37:49

say, a cold environment with a bunch of other mice,

37:51

and you have just a warm corner. Mice don't like

37:53

to be cold. You say, who

37:56

gets the warm corner? Who gets

37:58

the luxury spot? always

38:00

the winner. So, it even breaks down

38:02

at the level of social interactions. And so

38:04

you say, okay, all right, now we know

38:06

that this brain area is this one area

38:08

of the frontal cortex, but what's it actually

38:11

doing, right? Okay, what's it actually trans... How

38:13

can we translate this? It turns out this

38:15

brain area that's responsible and required for winning

38:17

in this series of experiments is

38:20

actually driving up the level of

38:22

activation, what you and I

38:24

would call agitation or stress to the

38:27

point where that animal is more likely

38:29

to move forward. It's simply

38:31

taking stress, which was wired

38:33

into us in order to make us feel agitated instead

38:36

of suppressing us. Instead

38:38

of saying, you know what, I'm just going to sit

38:40

here, I'm overwhelmed, I'm just going to move into action.

38:43

So there's a circuit for winning. There's

38:45

the same circuit when it's hypoactive,

38:48

not active enough, is what

38:50

causes losing in these competitive

38:52

scenarios. And similarly, there's

38:54

a circuit for quitting. There's a norepinephrine circuit

38:56

in the brainstem, this was published in the

38:58

last couple years, showing that when

39:01

animals or people are in constant effort,

39:03

eventually that level of norepinephrine gets so

39:05

high that it triggers a circuit that

39:07

shuts down the motor control over the

39:09

limbs and you just say, that's it,

39:11

I give up, I'm done. So

39:13

these mechanisms were hardwired into us. We

39:15

all have them. Whether or

39:17

not it's from evolution, Mother Nature, God, the

39:20

universe, it's irrelevant to

39:22

the discussion that these circuits exist in

39:24

everybody. And I think

39:26

it's a select few people who

39:28

really understand that forward action is

39:31

what drives these circuits. It's

39:34

the ability to take that agitation, stress agitation,

39:36

increase our focus, and they bias us for

39:38

movement. And nature wanted that. They want us

39:41

to move forward in the face of challenge,

39:43

not to be quiescent. We weren't sitting around

39:45

battling tigers and saber-tooth tigers all the time.

39:47

More likely, we were in caves and we

39:49

were getting hungry and we had to go

39:51

out and search for things. Agitation and stress

39:53

were designed to get us up and move

39:56

us. And when we try and fight that

39:58

too much, and we try and... quiet

40:00

that stress, that actually

40:02

can be problematic. You have to decide, are

40:04

you gonna try and quiet stress or are

40:06

you gonna actually lean into action? That's a

40:08

critical choice point for everybody who's experienced anything

40:11

negative or positive for that matter. That

40:15

is so useful in terms of getting

40:17

people to understand how to get themselves

40:19

out of it. And this goes back

40:21

to this notion that your

40:24

thoughts are ultimately a choice.

40:27

You get to decide what you think about

40:29

and when you understand that you're living in

40:31

this VR environment and that there are things

40:34

like simply moving forward is gonna make you

40:36

feel entirely different, that you're being essentially manipulated

40:38

by evolution, by nature, however you wanna think

40:40

about it, to get you agitated enough to

40:43

go out and do the things you need

40:45

to do but that it has this just

40:47

feedback loop of how it makes you feel

40:49

about yourself that winning begets winning and losing

40:52

begets losing but it isn't like at some

40:54

sort of grand, untangible level that it's

40:56

happening at the level of neurochemistry that

40:58

there are regions of the brain that

41:00

are designed for this. So how can

41:02

somebody begin to turn things around in

41:04

their life, if I know one thing

41:07

that people really struggle with is they

41:09

have this negative voice in their head

41:11

that's just playing this loop. And

41:13

so even if they

41:15

understand the mechanisms, some part of

41:17

them is gonna discount it, right? Because it's

41:19

like, wow, you're just trying to say that

41:21

because you think you can manipulate neurochemistry but

41:23

you, you're a loser, like you just fall

41:26

in line and that's what's playing in their

41:28

head. How do people go in

41:30

and really take the reins of that process

41:32

so that they can start winning? Yeah,

41:34

great question. So I'm

41:37

never gonna argue that we can subjectively

41:39

control all of our experience because there's

41:41

some things that just genuinely suck, right,

41:43

and it's important to register those

41:47

not so great events or terrible events because

41:50

they can drive us also. We

41:52

can be driven from a place of anger, frustration and

41:54

revenge or we can be driven from a place of

41:57

love, gratitude, and et cetera. I'm

41:59

not here to judge. which one is better or worse,

42:01

but the nervous system doesn't distinguish between them. So if

42:03

you're the kind of person that needs to, you know,

42:05

kind of budge yourself into something, great. If you're the

42:07

kind of person that wants to do things from more

42:10

of a warm, fuzzy feeling, that's fine too. What

42:12

I will say is this. The ability to

42:14

tap into this dopamine reward system, which is

42:17

activated anytime you're in pursuit of something that's

42:19

outside the boundaries of your skin and literally

42:21

the boundaries of your body, as well as

42:24

the reward system, the serotonin oxytocin system, which

42:26

is really about the things that are contained

42:28

within your own body and immediate experience, things

42:30

like gratitude and, you know, touch

42:32

and comfort and things like that with loved ones. The

42:35

ability to tap into both is crucial. Now

42:38

you said something really important, which was, well,

42:40

negative thoughts, negative thoughts, what

42:42

to do. I don't believe

42:45

that it's very easy to suppress negative

42:47

thoughts. However, when you

42:49

realize that thoughts can be

42:51

deliberately introduced, you can

42:54

start replacing negative thoughts with

42:56

new types of thoughts. So you can

42:58

always add something in. But when

43:01

people start to realize that thoughts are very

43:03

much like physical actions of reaching and picking

43:05

up a glass of water or taking a

43:07

jog around the block or

43:09

typing an email perfectly, this is something I

43:12

sometimes do because I'm, you know,

43:14

I struggle to do a perfect email. Not all my

43:16

emails are perfect, but when I do one, I make

43:18

sure that I complete it

43:20

and I think, okay, it's possible. It's not

43:22

because the email being perfect is so important.

43:24

It's because I want to remind myself that

43:27

my thoughts and my actions are essentially

43:29

the same. The nervous system

43:31

can organize thoughts. So for somebody that's

43:33

struggling, you know, we have

43:36

these examples like, oh, they were really back on

43:38

their heels or they were so depleted, no money

43:40

and all this stuff. What are they going to,

43:42

we have so many examples like that, but in

43:44

trying to make it actionable, it's really about saying,

43:46

yep, that's all true. But I'm

43:48

going to introduce a thought, which is I made

43:50

it through today. I

43:53

made it through today and that's actually worth

43:55

celebrating at a micro level. So if you

43:57

can give yourself dopamine rewards.

44:00

In small increments right you're not trying to celebrate the

44:02

made it through one day sometimes that's a huge feat

44:04

but most of the time you just want to dose

44:06

yourself with a little bit of that internal

44:08

release of dopamine. You start

44:11

rewarding incremental steps and if there's anything

44:13

that your listeners could take away from

44:15

this whole thing about dopamine reward schedules

44:17

and being in movement it reward incremental

44:20

steps. In particular incremental

44:22

steps that are about forward action so

44:25

maybe that's writing an email maybe that's.

44:28

Maybe that's that run around the block maybe

44:30

that's something much grander for you better

44:33

things right the stairs get further and

44:35

further away from one another cuz you

44:37

achieve more success and so they tend

44:39

to be you have to take the

44:41

rungs on the ladder further apart so

44:43

to speak that's a time when you

44:46

really need to implement not only dopamine

44:48

rewards but also. Those serotonin oxytocin rewards

44:50

etc so that make it actionable. I

44:53

would say remember don't spend so

44:55

much time trying to suppress negative thoughts

44:57

if you need trauma therapy pursue that

44:59

with a professional but you have negative

45:01

thoughts just remember i can also introduce.

45:03

Positive thoughts the same way i can

45:05

control running around the block positive thoughts

45:07

are the equivalent of forward physical action

45:10

and if you reward them internally you

45:12

buffer yourself against the quitting. Circuit

45:15

this no effort circuit we're talking about

45:17

before you are building a stronger

45:19

version of yourself completely between your own

45:21

ears and some people say well that's

45:23

silly. Like you're saying i'm gonna jump

45:25

up and down reward myself for doing

45:27

nothing no you're building the neural circuits

45:29

that reward that you can control self

45:31

reward and in doing that. You

45:34

can push through days and weeks of effort

45:36

consistently i don't mean necessarily all nighters but

45:38

you can push and push and push. You

45:40

know my career is one that was made over

45:42

two decades it wasn't we had our big you

45:44

know peaks and we had a lot of alleys

45:47

but. Learning to control these rewards

45:49

is absolutely key and i know you've done this

45:51

to tom it's like you know it the

45:54

huge wins are great but it's really

45:56

about rewarding these increments you can keep

45:58

going another thirty another. 40 years,

46:00

50 years, 100 years, if that's how long, you know, if

46:02

David Sinclair has his way, you know, we'll

46:05

live 100 more years, all of us, so. No

46:08

matter what you wanna do with your life,

46:10

optimizing your wellbeing is critically important. But how

46:12

do you learn these critical skills? Well,

46:14

you got two options. Option one, learn from

46:17

your mistakes, AKA, smash your hand with a

46:19

hammer, discover that it hurts, and then never

46:21

do that again. But as they

46:23

say, any fool can learn from experience, it

46:25

takes a wise man to learn from the

46:28

mistakes of others. That brings us to option

46:30

two for improving your wellbeing, Audible.

46:32

Where you can choose from a

46:34

near infinite library of audiobooks on

46:37

wellbeing. I truly believe that audiobooks

46:39

are one of the most powerful

46:41

tools for optimizing your wellness and

46:43

wellbeing, and there is nowhere,

46:45

and I mean nowhere better for discovering

46:47

audiobooks than Audible. I average

46:50

over 100 audiobooks per year, and

46:52

a ton of those are directly

46:54

related to improving my physical and

46:57

mental health. With wellness categories that

46:59

touch on the physical, mental, spiritual,

47:01

motivational, occupational, and financial, you really

47:04

can improve any area of your

47:06

life with the right audiobook. That's

47:08

why I'm an Audible power user,

47:11

no joke. I am obsessed, because

47:13

audiobooks have so dramatically improved my

47:15

life. If you're serious this year

47:17

about your mental and physical wellbeing,

47:19

head to Audible right now. You'll

47:21

find audiobooks full of the knowledge

47:23

and stories that you'll need to

47:25

stay motivated and inspired to pursue

47:27

your goals. So whether you're trying

47:29

to improve your mental health, your

47:31

diet, your relationships, or your sleep,

47:33

Audible is guaranteed to have something

47:35

amazing for you. Stop smashing your

47:37

own hand and start learning from

47:39

all of the brilliant people that

47:41

have published audiobooks on the world's

47:44

most important topics. And if you

47:46

act now, Audible members can select

47:48

one title a month to keep.

47:50

A couple of my favorite titles

47:52

are Outlived by Peter Atiyah, Brack

47:54

by James Nestor, and Principles by

47:56

Ray Dalio. All three guests on

47:58

my show and all three. audiobooks that

48:00

will dramatically improve your life. New

48:03

members can try Audible now for 30 days.

48:06

Just visit audible.com/impact theory or

48:08

text impact theory to 500

48:10

500. That's

48:15

audible.com/impact theory or text impact

48:17

theory to 500 500 to

48:19

try audible

48:22

free for 30 days. This

48:24

podcast is brought to you by

48:27

Squarespace. If you've got ideas that

48:29

you feel compelled to put out into the

48:31

world like I do, then you need to

48:33

find your own unique angle, something that sets

48:35

you apart from the rest and then act

48:37

on it because, and I truly

48:40

believe this, our ideas have

48:42

the potential to change people in the

48:44

world, but only if you actually put

48:46

them to use, you have

48:48

to put yourself out there. And quite frankly, you

48:51

have to stand out from the billions of other

48:53

people online. And there is no better

48:55

way to make an impact and succeed

48:57

online than with Squarespace. Squarespace

48:59

is the all in one website

49:01

platform that makes it easy to

49:03

create a beautiful website, engage with

49:05

your audience and sell anything from

49:07

content to products, all on your

49:09

own terms with Squarespace is flexible

49:12

website templates. You can make any template

49:14

do what you want. So

49:16

your idea brand or business

49:18

stands out online on every

49:21

device. Plus their site store

49:23

and email analytics give you

49:25

the data you need to make informed

49:27

decisions about your website, sales,

49:29

and marketing strategies so you can

49:32

keep getting better. Head to squarespace.com/impact

49:34

for a free 14 day trial

49:36

and 10% off your first

49:40

purchase of a website or domain. That's

49:44

squarespace.com/impact. The show

49:46

is sponsored by

49:48

better help. My

49:50

wife, Lisa and I have been married for 20 amazing

49:52

years. We've

49:54

been through a lot and have grown together so

49:56

much to have the strong solid relationship that

49:58

we have today. But I assure

50:00

you, that did not just happen. It required a

50:03

huge amount of work on both of our parts.

50:06

We both had to make our

50:08

relationship a priority, holding each other

50:10

accountable and communicate like crazy to

50:12

make the relationship really have a

50:14

foundation built to last. The

50:16

punchline is that you have to put time

50:18

and energy into working on your relationships, whether

50:20

that's with another person or even with yourself.

50:23

Quite frankly, therapy for you could be a

50:25

tremendous outlet to work through the challenges you

50:28

face in all of your relationships, whether

50:30

they're with friends, colleagues, your significant

50:32

other or even a relationship with

50:34

just yourself. Check

50:36

out BetterHelp for convenient online therapy

50:38

and become your own soulmate, whether

50:41

you're looking for one or not.

50:43

Visit betterhelp.com/impact theory today

50:46

to get 10% off

50:49

your first month. That's

50:51

betterhelp, help.com/impact

50:54

theory. Yeah,

50:57

if people learn to tie things to the

50:59

process, then they've got a real shot. The

51:04

success is not guaranteed, but the struggle is, right?

51:07

If you are able to

51:11

get to the point where you get excited

51:13

about the learning process, you get excited about

51:15

trying something even if you fail, that if

51:17

you can associate in your own mind that

51:19

I feel better about who I am because

51:21

I tried this thing, then

51:24

it begins to stack because even the

51:26

failures become something that you learn. You

51:28

actually have made some progress because you

51:31

took action, because you tried something, and

51:33

now understanding some of the brain mechanisms

51:35

around it, it really gets super powerful.

51:40

For people to make

51:42

use of every tool that they have at

51:45

their disposal, something that you've talked about

51:47

that I've always been really interested in

51:49

at the periphery but never have delved

51:52

into it enough is hypnosis.

51:56

When people think of hypnosis, I think they think of

51:58

stage hypnosis. What's the real … The oh, why

52:00

is it useful And and how do people

52:02

actually use it. Yeah. So I'm

52:05

I'm really glad you asked about the So. I

52:07

have a colleague. his name is David Spiegel in

52:09

our department psychiatry at Stanford and he and I

52:11

have a collaboration going now looking at how respiration

52:13

are. breathing can be used to shift the brain

52:15

into different states and I'm I've talked to David

52:17

about this and so I'm sort of borrowing from

52:19

his words years. I want to be fair that

52:22

he's are. From. Those conversations

52:24

so hypnosis inevitably involves.

52:27

Relaxing. The nervous system taking the

52:29

nervous system into states that are more

52:31

like sleep. Now what I mean by

52:33

that is in high alert states where

52:35

you're talking and planning and in action

52:37

and stress in particular the brain is

52:39

very linear and saying okay, if this

52:41

than this, if then then that. This

52:43

is why we tend to be forward

52:45

thinking when work. When were stressed we

52:47

tend to be not in our media

52:49

experience but really come forward thinking. So

52:51

clinical hypnosis involves. Going. Into

52:54

his state of deeper relaxation so that

52:56

our analysis of space and time meaning

52:58

the way that the brings his perceiving

53:00

events is slightly. Dismantled.

53:03

So that it's a little bit dreamlike. And

53:05

then the hypnotist And this could be by

53:07

listen to a script or listen to a

53:09

thera hypnotherapist. Starts. In

53:11

narrower context take our thoughts if

53:14

you will it down a particular

53:16

past and that pass to be

53:18

one of on stress reduction or

53:20

a smoking cessation on hypnosis is

53:22

not Incidentally is very good for

53:24

treatment of sit smoking cessation or

53:26

for feelings of well being. I

53:28

we're confronting traumas so what it

53:31

is it's really opening up to

53:33

the window for neural plasticity which

53:35

is of course the brain's ability

53:37

to change in response to experience

53:39

to trigger neural plasticity. You. Have

53:41

to have focus, especially as an adult.

53:43

You need a seat of. Released

53:46

by. High. Levels Of

53:48

Attention: Acetylcholine and Norepinephrine together norepinephrine to

53:51

create that sense of urgency and acetylcholine

53:53

to bring that spotlight of focus in

53:55

really, really tight. That. triggers

53:57

plasticity but the actual

54:00

It marks certain synapses in the brain

54:02

for change, but the actual changes in

54:04

the synapses, the rewiring, okay?

54:06

That happens during states of

54:08

sleep and deep rest. So

54:11

this is why when you're trying to learn a motor

54:13

skill, you go and you go and your tennis serve

54:15

is not happening, it's not happening, you take a break,

54:17

you come back and you nail it. You're like, wait,

54:19

what happened? Well, you needed time to set those circuits

54:22

in motion and allow them to do the rewiring, the

54:24

sort of adaptation. Hypnosis seems to

54:26

capture both the high attentional state

54:28

and the deep relaxation at the

54:30

same time. It's this very

54:33

unusual state of mind where you're neither

54:35

asleep nor awake and in tight focus

54:37

or narrow focus. And it's

54:39

very clear that it leads to these

54:42

rapid changes in behavior because you're rewiring

54:44

the brain. And the reason you're able

54:46

to rewire the brain so quickly is

54:48

because you're getting the trigger event, the

54:51

focus, and you're also

54:53

getting the relaxation event simultaneously. And

54:55

so it's much faster than separating out

54:58

the learning trigger from the actual rewiring

55:00

of the brain. My

55:02

lab has a deep interest and David

55:04

Spiegel's lab has a deep interest now

55:06

in using respiration or breathing to shift

55:08

our state to either heightened states of

55:10

focus and alertness to open up neuroplasticity,

55:13

right? There are gonna be lots of

55:15

ways to access. Can you give me

55:17

some examples? Like what are we doing

55:19

very specifically? Breathwork I find incredibly interesting.

55:22

Changed my life through meditation, just

55:24

shifting my breathing to diaphragmatic breathing

55:26

was no joke, it changed

55:28

my life. It changed my relationship

55:30

to anxiety, my feeling of being able to

55:33

control my state as it started to spiral.

55:36

So I'd be very curious to know what

55:38

type of breathing are we talking about here?

55:41

Yeah, so I'm really glad you mentioned the

55:43

diaphragm. Diaphragm of course being this muscle inside

55:45

of all of us, at least all mammals,

55:47

that works all the time to move our

55:49

lungs because all the cells are in

55:51

a body that need oxygen. Of course we're gonna get

55:53

rid of carbon dioxide. It does that, but it's done

55:56

reflexively, but we can also take

55:58

voluntary control over it. I wanna just mention about the diaphragm. and

56:00

why it's so important for what were

56:02

these state changes is that a

56:04

lot of people talk about the vagus nerve and all this

56:06

stuff. The vagus and these connections between the brain and this

56:08

vagus nerve or the gut, it's what

56:11

gets activated when you're really full and you eat

56:13

a big meal and you feel relaxed. Those are

56:15

great, but it's very slow. The

56:17

diaphragm is skeletal muscle, just like your bicep,

56:19

just like your tricep, just like your quadricep.

56:21

It is the only internal organ, except maybe

56:23

a couple of muscles in your throat, that

56:26

are actually skeletal muscle, meaning it

56:28

was designed to be voluntarily moved.

56:32

The diaphragm isn't just designed to move your

56:34

lungs. It also sends a signal through the

56:36

so-called phrenic nerve back to the brain to

56:38

inform your brain about the status of your

56:40

body. When you breathe fast

56:43

deliberately, the reason you feel an

56:45

elevated sense of alertness is because,

56:47

yeah, there are chemicals secreting, but mostly because

56:49

the phrenic nerve is firing off and telling you,

56:51

hey, the body's moving. We're really running now, even

56:53

though you're stationary in a chair if you're doing

56:56

breathing. Or if you're breathing very slowly and rhythmically,

56:59

box-type breathing or slow breathing, your

57:03

diaphragm is telling your

57:05

brain, hey, we're calm, we're good.

57:07

And you calm down very quickly on the

57:09

order of seconds. And so once you start

57:12

tapping into this, you start realizing, okay, movement

57:14

of the body was designed to inform the

57:16

brain of where to be, not just the

57:18

brain telling the body. And how does the

57:21

body communicate with the brain? Through the phrenic

57:23

nerve from the diaphragm. So my lab is

57:25

really pursuing two questions and this is still

57:27

being worked out. So I just wanna highlight

57:29

that it's still in progress. But

57:33

certain patterns of breathing will calm you very

57:35

much like entering a hypnotic state. And so

57:37

you have a subset of neurons in your

57:39

brainstem that are responsible for

57:41

sighing. Is it you have a

57:43

subset of neurons in your brainstem responsible for

57:46

coughing, subset of neurons responsible for laughter, and

57:48

a subset of neurons in your brainstem for

57:50

sighing. This was a paper published in

57:52

Nature. This is a real thing.

57:54

These neurons are every so often,

57:57

and your dog does this too, you

57:59

inhale. twice and

58:02

then you exhale long. Now

58:05

that double inhale, best done

58:07

through the nose on the inhales and then

58:09

long exhale through the mouth, activates

58:12

these side neurons that trigger the so-called

58:14

calming reflex, the parasympathetic arm of the

58:16

nervous system. So we have

58:18

a hardwired mechanism, a set of neurons, connection to

58:20

the diaphragm and back again from the diaphragm to

58:22

the brain that was designed to activate calm. When

58:26

people ask me, how should I breathe to

58:28

calm myself down, I would say double inhale

58:31

through the nose followed by exhales. Two or

58:33

three of those will reset your autonomic nervous

58:35

system faster than any other mechanism

58:37

we're aware of because it's really

58:40

capitalizing on a set of neural circuits. Now

58:42

once you're calm, you say, well, how do I

58:45

get into plasticity states? There you

58:47

want to go the other direction. That's

58:49

going to be inhaling a lot more than you

58:51

exhale. You're going to be driving in more oxygen

58:53

than you are breathing out, generally

58:56

carbon dioxide, and that will lead to

58:58

states that are kind of more elevated.

59:00

This is typical of things like Tummo

59:02

breathing, Wim Hof breathing, Kundalini breathing. And

59:04

when people enter those states, their

59:07

whole world changes because it shuts off the frontal

59:09

cortex. It really, this is why sometimes people pass

59:11

out or they feel like they want to get

59:13

up and move. You get some odd behavior when

59:15

you're doing this kind of thing. So

59:18

the key is if you want to access states

59:20

of heightened plasticity, let's say you want

59:22

to learn faster or you want to be more,

59:26

you want to bring more out of some physical

59:28

training that you're doing. The key is to apply

59:30

those principles. First you need to focus. You need

59:32

to bring yourself to that heightened state of alertness.

59:34

You can breathe to do that. So this would

59:36

be super oxygenated breathing. Then

59:38

you want to drop into a state of

59:41

calm and you do that by these a

59:43

couple, maybe two or three rounds of inhale,

59:45

inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale. And

59:47

then now your brain is in a state,

59:49

we believe, this is still again being worked

59:51

out in labs like mine and David's, but

59:53

then you're in a state for heightened learning

59:57

because you're in a state where neurochemicals

59:59

like like acetylcholine are going

1:00:01

to be at levels that are higher than they typically would

1:00:03

be. Things like noradrenaline, slightly

1:00:06

higher than they typically would be, but not

1:00:08

in a discombobulated way, in a very regulated

1:00:10

way. And the cool thing is you're regulating

1:00:12

them. So you could argue,

1:00:15

you know, earlier we were talking about subjective

1:00:17

emotions and thoughts and all these things, but

1:00:19

one thing that's absolutely concrete is

1:00:21

breathing. I always think of physical

1:00:23

exercise, movement, writing, whatever,

1:00:26

singing, dancing, talking, those are physical actions

1:00:28

in the universe. Then

1:00:30

you have thoughts and somewhere in between

1:00:32

those is controlling your respiration. Once you

1:00:34

can control everything that's within the confines

1:00:36

of your skull and skin, once you

1:00:39

can really control that relationship, that brain-body

1:00:41

relationship, you start to realize that relationship

1:00:43

is a lot like any other relationship

1:00:45

to forward action. It's just all happening

1:00:47

within the confines of my body. So

1:00:49

it's heightened states of focus, followed by

1:00:51

states of relaxation that are going to

1:00:54

prime your nervous system for learning and

1:00:56

plasticity, just like hypnosis. Sorry

1:00:59

for the long-winded discussion. Don't

1:01:02

you dare apologize. That is some

1:01:05

of the most powerful and useful

1:01:07

information literally ever. I

1:01:10

can't tell you how much I love

1:01:12

what you're studying, what you're talking about.

1:01:14

This is so incredible, dude. Thank

1:01:17

you so much. Where can people engage with

1:01:19

you? Where can they learn more? I think

1:01:21

this is so important and so powerful. I

1:01:24

want people to really connect with

1:01:26

you. Thanks so much. I

1:01:29

teach Instagram in little short bits

1:01:31

and sometimes in longer bits on

1:01:34

Instagram. That's Huberman Lab, H-U-B-E-R-M-A-N-L-A-B. That's

1:01:37

where I teach neuroscience and offer up things

1:01:39

about plasticity and sleep and also some tools.

1:01:41

We talk about things like autism and lots

1:01:43

of things. Anytime I see a paper, it's

1:01:45

interesting. I try and discuss it. My

1:01:48

lab is hubermanlab.com there. We put our papers

1:01:50

and our research that we publish. We

1:01:53

are always recruiting subjects for experiments where

1:01:56

we pay you to participate in these different kinds

1:01:58

of things. Respiration breath

1:02:00

were to study soon so I'm if you

1:02:02

reach out by Instagram are all probably announced

1:02:05

that there is. well he wonderful. We were

1:02:07

looking to recruit people, were teaming up with

1:02:09

some tech companies and will armed people were

1:02:11

some really terrific at home tax so we

1:02:13

can get their data and really get a

1:02:16

clear sense of how these tools and practices

1:02:18

aren't just landing subjectively, but really what's happening

1:02:20

at a concrete level, even things like court

1:02:22

all measures and stuff. So if you're interested

1:02:25

you can reach out and through either venue

1:02:27

that you Roman lab or the Instagram Superman

1:02:29

Lab. On and I. I generally

1:02:31

try and respond to everybody's request. Sometimes I'm

1:02:33

a little slow, but. I really

1:02:35

am to do. That. As much

1:02:37

as possible. Nice.

1:02:40

Man, I love a dude. So last question,

1:02:42

If you're gonna have people make one change,

1:02:44

the have the biggest impact on their health.

1:02:47

What changes you haven't make? Out

1:02:49

as a great question. I think

1:02:51

the fundamental. Step. That everybody

1:02:53

should be taking everyday for. Many.

1:02:56

Aspects of their health: mental, physical,

1:02:58

digestive, Immune. All of that is

1:03:00

to get to to ten minutes

1:03:02

of bright lights first thing in

1:03:04

the morning On waking. Ideally.

1:03:07

It's sunlight. You. Could do

1:03:09

it through a window if you were. He probably

1:03:11

should wear sunglasses while you do it. Don't stare

1:03:13

at the sun until you burn your retinas out

1:03:15

or something and make a painful please don't do

1:03:18

that but just getting bright light exposure for sing

1:03:20

in the mornings organizes. The. Nervous system

1:03:22

in the rest of the organs of the

1:03:24

body in such a powerful way that I

1:03:26

feel like. If. You do that most

1:03:28

days of you miss a day. No big

1:03:30

deal, but if you do that most days

1:03:33

you're setting yourself on the path to do

1:03:35

all the other sorts of things correctly and

1:03:37

your biology will thank you for it. Love.

1:03:39

That do this is amazing! Thank you

1:03:41

so much! I definitely when the quarantine

1:03:43

is lifted we've gotta get together in

1:03:45

the same room or the don't be

1:03:47

so much fun. I could easily go

1:03:49

on for another hour or two or

1:03:51

three hours talking about this view? So

1:03:53

are you have an open invitation to

1:03:56

come back in a very near future?

1:03:58

So thank you so much that. No

1:04:00

thank you are absolutely man thank. You for

1:04:02

coming on.