Here's the diabolical thing. The risk of

dying early if you have bright nights

goes up immensely. There have been a lot

of studies on people after 6 p.m. on

devices getting artificial LED exposure.

They live shorter lives. Cancer rates go

[music] up. They're metabolically

unhealthy. But here's the really scary

thing. We have a generation of kids that

are metabolically sick. [music] They

cling to their iPads. They're on

devices. But the problem is most things

are designed to make people do [music]

less of what's good for them. And we

don't talk about this enough. And

Andrew, you're one of the most trusted

voices in health today. And we've waited

many, many years for this protocols, an

operating manual for the human body.

These 10 protocols are well established.

They're the ones that are going to move

the needle the most in terms of one's

mental health, physical health, and

performance. Okay, so let's get into it.

So protocol number one, you want [music]

to get sunlight because exposure each

day to the skin, increases testosterone

and estrogen in both women and men, and

is important for libido. [music]

And then the second, and this is really

key, is to reduce stress fast. And I'll

explain how to do that in a moment. And

then number three, working out with

weights for 45 minutes, taking your sets

near to failure. It will triple or

quadruple your cortisol levels. But a

lot of people have been told, don't

spike your cortisol. It's the stress

hormone, but it's a preparation hormone.

You're preparing for adversity, but also

great things. The next thing, and this

is one of the most valuable skills. If

you do it for 5 minutes per day, you

will experience a significant

improvement in mental and physical

health. And then sleeping on your side,

very important for [music] offsetting

dementia, getting rid of bags under your

eyes. But Stephen, the number one thing

that you need to know about is the

moment I started, my life got so much

better [music] and I really started to

see what I could only describe as

miracles. Andrew, I have this

outstanding question that I have to ask

you. You don't really talk in depth

about supplements. I Oh, I do. I go ham.

>> So, you can only do five for the rest

[music] of your life.

>> Oh gosh. I highly recommend getting a

>> This is super interesting to me. My team

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on with the show.

[music]

Andrew Huberman, um, we've waited many,

many years for this and now it has

arrived. This is your long-awaited book

called Protocols, an operating manual

for the human body. And inside this

book, I counted roughly 50 different

protocols split across seven different

areas. Um, sleep, exercise, stress

control, nutrition, light, focus,

motivation, and learning, and personal

growth. You've written 10 of the

protocols you want to focus on sharing

today. Can I ask why did you choose

those 10?

They're the ones that are going to move

the needle the most in terms of one's

mental health, physical health, and

quote unquote performance. Your life

will be so much better if you do them.

>> And do they cost a lot of money to do

the 10 that you've picked?

>> No, they could be done either at

completely zero cost or on a existing

budget.

>> And do you do these 10 things

>> every day?

>> Every day.

>> There's one on there that I don't do

every single day. I take off one day per

week, but every single day without fail.

And when you wrote them, did you write

them in order of sequencing?

>> Yeah. Throughout the day, from from

start to finish throughout because this

is the other thing. Protocols synergize.

They ratchet together. How well you

slept last night is dictating how well

you feel now.

>> These are gears in a larger system. One

moves, the other ones move. And while

there is a place for pharmarmacology and

supplements and things that you take,

>> ultimately these gears fit together

based on what you do.

>> Okay. So, let's get into it. What was

the first uh thing that you drew? cuz I

saw there was a picture there.

>> Okay, so in my unelegant drawing, but I

I am a you know biologist, so we're

allowed to do this. I mean, this is

essentially a plot of where you wake up

in the morning and then where you go to

sleep at night, you know, and these are

not hours of the day. These are the

different protocols. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10. Okay, so um this line represents the

healthy cortisol curve. Most people

don't realize that, but you wake up

because of a rise in cortisol. It's

literally called the cortisol awakening

response. If you've ever woken up 1

minute before your alarm clock, it's

because the cortisol awakening response

is heavily entrainable, meaning it can

be matched to external stimulant. You

want this peak in cortisol as high as

possible in the first 60 minutes of your

day.

Everyone thinks you want low cortisol,

but here's the deal. High cortisol in

the early part of your day is what

provides for elevated mood, focus,

attention, your ability to learn. It's

also what establishes low cortisol in

the afternoon and at night which is a

requirement for falling and staying

asleep.

>> So this peak sets up this trough. So you

want high morning cortisol, low

nighttime cortisol. These represent

melatonin, the hormone of sleepiness. As

we know, if you slept the night before,

then melatonin essentially is low at

morning. And the dash line is adenosine,

which is a downstream product of of the

use of ATP in your cells. The more

you're awake, the more activities you

do, the more you think, adenosine builds

up. That's why you get sleepy.

[clears throat]

>> So, what's very interesting is that when

you spike your morning cortisol, and

I'll explain how to do that in a moment.

And you do that within the first hours

of your day, you also establish a case

where these little blips are stress,

stressful text, stressful event, but

they're brief. We always hear that

cortisol is bad, but our ability to have

big inflections in cortisol, stress out,

and then they come back down to normal

is very very good. If this peak was

high, if this peak is not as high, and

this is kind of a like a medium or or

flat what they call a flattening of the

cortisol curve, you see shorter

lifespan, less recovery from every kind

of illness, and and these stress bouts

last a very long time because they're

riding on a higher baseline. So if your

morning cortisol level is lower or flat,

>> right,

>> then if I get that stressful text during

the day, it will be a longer cortisol

spike. More stress,

>> bigger and longer.

>> Oh wow.

>> And not only that, but there's an

indirect but very important interaction

between cortisol and melatonin. Your

sleepiness hormone doesn't come on and

function as well.

>> And so sleep gets very disrupted. So a

lot of people think, "Oh, I don't want

my morning cortisol high." And a lot of

women in particular have been told,

"Don't spike your cortisol. that's going

to lead to excess visceral fat, moon

face, etc. There's this a condition

called Cushing syndrome, which is a

massive overp production of cortisol.

Very rare condition. I mean, it happens,

but most people are not dealing with

that, right? Most people's morning

cortisol is too low and their afternoon

and nighttime cortisol is too high.

>> How do they know this stuff? Like, how

do they test this?

>> This healthy curve, as it's called, um,

was measured through just consistent

blood draws around the 24-hour cycle.

And then it's been looked at in response

to everything from caffeine to cold

plunges to exercise to sunlight. And

there's this very So protocol number one

is hydrate. Your mind is exceedingly

more sharp when you're well hydrated.

And it actually helps boost your morning

cortisol. There's a very interesting

interaction between when the bladder

being emptied as usually after people

wake up, they use the the restroom, they

urinate, and then hydrating. And there's

an I'll talk about this a few times, but

there's an ascending pathway along the

vagus nerve that serves to wake up the

brain. And part of that has to do with

hydration first thing in the morning.

You awake from bed to urinate in the

middle of the night because of an

arousal phenomenon of hydration and the

bladder being full.

>> When you say hydrate, do you mean

electrolytes or just water?

>> 16 to 32 ounces of good clean water is

fine. If you want to add electrolytes,

great.

>> How much is that? Is that a cup or is

that?

>> Um, this is 16 ounces. Maybe 18 ounces.

>> Okay. So, like a big a big mug. You want

to consume about 80 ounces of water

throughout your day. It's a lot, but you

don't want to cons basically everything

you want to do in the early part of the

day, you want to do less in the evening

part of your day. The next thing, and

this is really key, it could have gone

first, but you want to view sunlight or

10,000 lux artificial light. I could

spend 3 hours talking about this, but

I'll keep it really brief. When you view

sunlight, there's this beautiful

phenomenon. It activates these

melanopsin intrinsically photosensitive

ganglen cells. You know, the major focus

of my work for many, many years. So I'll

resist saying more. They literally

extend physical wires that we call axons

into your hypothalamus. Your master

circadian clock resides there. We call

that your super chaismatic nucleus. And

when you view low solar angle sunlight,

sun low in the sky, there's an abundance

of yes UV, but it's lower when it's low

in the sky. You actually can look at the

morning sun more easily than you can the

overhead sun. Why? The morning sun looks

more yellow, orange, or even some red

tones

>> compared to the overhead sky. Well, the

light coming from the sky is the same,

right? But the specific wavelengths of

light, as we call them, that are coming

from the sun when it's low in the sky

are the optimal stimulus for these

melanops and intrinsically

photosensitive cells that tell your

central clock it's time to wake up. The

day is beginning. Okay. There's also

something incredible that happens if you

get bright light in your eyes in that

first ideally 30 minutes but even 60

minutes of your day which it there are

two pathways by which your brain

circadian clock wakes you up. One is it

sends signals through peptides it

releases and neural signals but it's

able to activate what we call the HPA

axis hypothalamus pituitary gland which

is sort of hangs outside the brain and

then adrenals you release adrenaline

there's a unique window that passes

after about an hour following waking

where your supercismatic clock can

trigger an alternate pathway that

literally goes down your spinal column

and triggers your adrenals to release

additional cortisol. In fact, viewing

sunlight in the first hour of your day

takes this peak. Here's what it would

look like if you didn't view bright

light in the first hour of your day. It

would be here, which is bad. And your

stress responses then would be bigger

and longer.

This

increase in cortisol is driven by

viewing sunlight. Now, when I say

sunlight, people say, especially in the

UK, they'll say there's no sun where I

live. Okay, this could easily see say

daylight. Why? Because there's always

daylight out. If you look at how bright

it is on an overcast day in the middle

of December, even in the UK at 8:00 a.m.

versus midnight the night before, it's

different.

>> Mhm.

>> You know, it's obvious when there's

overcast skies, less of the long

wavelength light, the oranges and reds

are coming through. But you want

daylight in your eyes in the first hours

of your day. Go out on your balcony if

that's all you can do. If you're in a

car, roll down the window. It's not good

to try and do this through a window or

windshield. There's so much data showing

that spiking your morning cortisol this

way establishes low cortisol and high

sleepiness hormones let's call them at

night which is great buffers stress and

moreover kickstarts your immune system

to protect you against bacteria and

viruses you can encounter during the day

it is great for your metabolism mood

ability to learn and on and on and in

the book I explain a number of different

ways how this peak relates to this

trough if people are interested but if

you don't have access to sunlight or

daylight light. Having a using a 10,000

lux artificial light can be very

beneficial. These 10,000 lux lights have

been shown to significantly

offset the symptoms of seasonal

effective disorder, etc. But what we're

finding from this huge study from the UK

bio bank is that you want bright days

and you want dark nights and they're

additive. So having bright days is great

for your mental health and physical

health along a huge number of

parameters. Significantly improves them.

But having dark, even if you were in dim

light all day, making it dark at night,

people are healthier. The risk of dying

early, if you have bright nights, goes

up immensely. And we don't talk about

this enough. If you don't have access to

enough daylight, like you wake up before

the sun comes out and you're up for 2

hours, let's say before the sun comes

out. I highly recommend getting a 10,000

lux artificial light.

>> And last time we spoke, you took me

outside after the conversation and you

had an app on your phone,

>> right? Light meter. I have no relation

to the app, but I use it. And that is

able to tell you how much lux of light

you're getting at the moment.

>> But it's additive. So one thing that's

important to note is let's say you miss

a day, right? The next day get outside

for twice as long. How long should you

do it on a very clear morning with the

sun rising? And by the way, you don't

need to see the sun cross the horizon.

You can just wait till it's elevated but

it's low in the sky. People who are

concerned about UV damage should know

that when the sun is low in the sky, the

UV index is much lower. And there's a

reason for that. It's a phenomenon

called relay scattering. Sunrises and

sunsets are very beautiful and colorful.

When the sun's overhead, it's hard to

look at. It's this big ball of light.

It's so bright because you're getting

all the wavelengths, the UV all the way

out to the infrared coming at you in

more or less equal intensities. When the

sun is low in the sky, the UV is it's

not completely scattered, but not as

much of that is is reaching your eyes.

Much lower risk of sunburn, much lower

risk of eye damage, and so on. So,

here's the diabolical thing. Your

screens are not nearly bright enough to

kickstart this increase in cortisol in

the morning, but they are very capable

of increasing your cortisol levels at

night because the this low level of

cortisol makes you vulnerable to big

increases in cortisol. It's a little bit

of a detail that I explain in the book,

but

>> I was going to say on this point, is it

just exposing my eyes to the light or

does my body need to be exposed to it?

>> Great point. And one of the protocols in

there, it's not one of the 10 I listed,

is about the importance of getting

sunlight on as much of your skin as

possible as is socially appropriate. Uh,

beautiful work from Glen Jeffy's lab at

University College London. You know, I

can believe this. They do a glucose

tolerance test. So they fast people,

they have them drink a glucose drink.

They measure how fast a blood sugar

rises. And if they shine red light, so

long wavelength is red is long

wavelength light

>> like that. Like that.

>> Yeah. Like this would be medium

wavelength because it's yellow. A red

would be um so this is probably I'm

guessing somewhere between 500 and 600

nanometers of light and red would be

probably somewhere between 580 and 700

and then infrared goes out further you

know into the 800s and thousand. The sun

emits all of those. Okay, so this is

long wavelength light. Okay. So, they

shine a long wavelength light on

people's backs and they do the glucose

tolerance test and and they observe a

more than 25% reduction in the peak and

they also look at the rate of rise of

blood glucose. It's buffering blood

glucose rise which we know is a good

thing.

>> Just to summarize, they shine red light

on someone's back while they have a

glucose shot and their glucose spike is

lower.

>> That's right. And you can do this onto

bare skin or you can do it through a

t-shirt. Turns out that these people's

metabolism rose significantly. Why? How?

Well, long wavelength light can actually

go into and through your body. It can it

gets absorbed and it can go about 8

centimeters into the body. Red light

wavelength light of infrared can pass

all the way through the body. They show

that beautifully in this study. So

that's not good. No, it's fantastic

because along the way it makes

confirmational changes in the way that

your mitochondria handle the electrons.

Basically this long wavelength infrared

light that comes from the sun. It's the

heat that you feel from the sun or from

a long wavelength light device allows is

so amazing. It actually allows your

mitochondria to to function more

effectively, more efficiently. Now, it's

not to say that short wavelength light,

blues and greens and ultraviolet light

are bad. We need ultraviolet light. We

need it on our skin to make vitamin D.

What you want is full spectrum balanced

light, but not so much UV that you get a

sunburn. And you don't want a lot of

shortwavelength light in the absence of

long wavelength light. Best way to do

that, sunlight in the early and later

part of the day because the UV index is

low. You're getting the full spectrum.

Indoor LED lights like this, which we

all spend a lot of time under. There's

now evidence from from Glen Jeffy's lab

and others that it actually may damage

the mitochondria. We talked about

melatonin coming coming from the pineal

gland that makes you sleepy at night.

You also have melatonin in most all of

the cells of your body. And there it

doesn't make you sleepy. serves as an

antioxidant but it's sort of captured

and the way to liberate it is through

long wavelength light. So you have a

protective mechanism that's kicked on

with long wavelength light that protects

you protects you against the oxidative

stress and damage to cells

>> and this has many many positive effects.

So Glenn's lab has done experiments

where they literally take in a light

like this and they have people look at

it like this for one to three minutes a

couple times a week. They look at people

different ages, different eye

conditions. He's a serious vision

scientist, right? He's not he's not a

biohacker. He's not he's has no interest

in commercial products actually,

although sometimes I wish he did. People

over 40 who experience age related

vision loss, we all do a little bit,

experience improvements in vision when

they do this simple thing. And why would

that be? Well, it turns out that your

photo receptors, which absorb light and

convert it into electrical signals that

allow you to see, are the most

mitochondrial rich and metabolically

active cells in your entire body. Now,

biologists love to play this game where

they go, "Your tongue is the most

metabolically active." Then they go,

"No, you're you." Everyone makes a claim

on this. The photo receptors, my

friends, are the most metabolically

active cells in your entire body. So,

they have a ton of mitochondria, and

they need to protect themselves against

the oxidative damage that comes with

generating a bunch of downstream

products from ATP. So, long wavelength

light is what protects us in this. So

you can see significant improvements in

vision for people that view long

wavelength light couple times a week.

But only in people older than 40. And

get this, only in people that do that in

the first 3 hours of their day.

>> What?

>> Yes. Your eyes and your body and brain

are not the same at this first third of

your day versus this middle third of

your day versus the last third of your

day and at night. They're not. Your

sensitivity to bright light causing bad

effects on you after sundown increases.

Not immediately, but it increases

gradually. Your need for bright light in

your eyes in the early part of the of

the day is immense. You need this. You

you want this. And if you miss a day,

get out the next day and view some more

light. You asked, will light to other

parts of the body work? Not for setting

this system in motion, but it's a great

idea to get out two to three times per

week when the UV index is low. you can

just look on your phone what's the UV

index and in general be the early or the

or the later half of your day when the

UV index is lower and to get out and get

some light onto your skin. You don't

have to be naked or in a swimsuit. Great

if you are and that's appropriate, but

you can also just wear a t-shirt because

the long wavelength light will go all

the way through. So Glenn Jeffrey and

Robert Roger Schwelt, he's a physician

who talks about the immense benefits of

getting sunlight onto the skin for

getting over disease for state for

enhancing immune system function and on

and on.

>> Can you because there's going to be a

lot of people right now that are going

to go buy a red light lamp.

>> Not necessary.

>> Not necessary.

>> No. Sunlight. Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd

album.

>> Pass sunlight through a prism. It bends

the light and you see the rainbow. Red,

orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,

violet. But also in that sunlight is

ultraviolet light, some UVB exposure

each day to the skin, increases

testosterone and estrogen in both women

and men and is important for libido. It

actually reinforces romantic

relationships for reasons other than uh

sexual interactions, um attractiveness,

etc. Strong effects. So sunlight has it

all. What you don't want is to go

outside when there's so much UV that you

get a sunburn. And you don't want to

think that, you know, red light's the

only light you need. You want that

warmth from from the sun. And it gets

better because and notice I'm I'm sort

of like it gets better like a salesman.

I'm selling nature. Okay, I'm telling

you when you go outside and there's a

lot of greenery. Greenery reflects long

wavelength red and infrared light. Throw

on some infrared goggles and you're not

going to do this, but you look and they

all that stuff would be glowing white in

those goggles. Greenery reflects down

infrared light. How do you know it

reflects light? I'm stealing Roger's

words as I say this, but where's the

coolest place to be on a hot day? Under

a tree. Why is that? Because it's

reflecting the heat, the infrared light.

But when you're out in greenery, you're

getting all that long wavelength light,

and it bounces around and it goes

through you. So, get out into nature,

walk outside. If you work and live in a

city, get outside, take off a brimmed

hat because you do want the the sun

getting down onto your onto your face.

People are so terrified about

accelerating aging based on UV, but

we're not talking about baking yourself

in UV light all day. The the health

benefits of this are immense. There's a

Swedish study that actually showed that

the more sunlight people got, the longer

they lived, in fact, smokers who got a

lot of sunlight, this isn't my favorite

study, but um but we have to admit it's

there, lived longers than non-smokers

who didn't get enough sunlight. There

and there are other things too like

exercise, etc., but don't smoke, but get

sunlight. There'll be a lot of night

shift workers listening.

>> I have a section specifically for night

shift workers because

here are the two scariest things. Night

shift workers

live shorter lives. Cancer rates go up.

They're metabolically unhealthy. And

it's very hard to mitigate. But I

provide some tools specifically for

night shift workers and for jet lag, by

the way, because people travel. Here's

the really scary thing. you and I

qualify as night shift workers because

the studies on night shift work, barring

some of the more extreme ones, was most

of them were on how many people after

6:00 p.m., right, are on devices getting

artificial LED exposure or doing

activities besides eating and

socializing with their family or in bed.

If you work at night at home, you're

still a night shift worker. You don't

have to work all night to be a night

shift worker. So, we have a generation

of kids that are metabolically sick. And

I don't like to be one of these like

fearmonger people, but here's the cool

thing. I'm going to skip because we're

on to this. I'm going to skip to number

six.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. As the sun is going down, you

don't have to watch the sunset. That

would be cool to watch the sun. Everyone

loves sunsets.

>> But try and get some daylight in your

eyes in the late afternoon or evening.

If you're going to be working indoors

from like after lunch until nightfall,

try and get near a window. Do your best.

Go out on a balcony, take a quick walk

around the building, do what you can to

get some sunlight in your eyes without

sunglasses. When you get some sunlight

in your eyes in the late part of your

day, let's just say in the last third of

your day, and the clock times don't

matter here cuz we all get up and go to

sleep at different times. You buffer

those cells in your eye against the

negative effects of artificial light at

night. This is your Netflix o

inoculation, as I call it. Like you can

be on your computer at 9 or 10 at night

without it damaging your melatonin

levels quite as much, without it

disrupting your blood glucose levels and

your sleep if you get some bright light

in your eyes in the later part of your

day. But there's one population of

people for whom this doesn't work and it

seems to be adolescence. You can't

buffer them against the negative effects

of screen light at night. What happens

if you use screen light at night? You

get big bumps in cortisol and people

say, "Well, I can fall asleep just fine

after being on my iPad or screen." True,

some people don't have as much of a

negative effect from blue light at

night, but the blood glucose effects and

the next morning cortisol effects are

the problem. Remember I said high

cortisol sets you up for low cortisol.

>> Yeah.

>> Low cortisol sets you up for high

cortisol. So you've got a population of

people, kids who have their cortisol is

slightly but significantly higher in the

evening and at night because they're on

devices and the next morning their

cortisol levels are struggling to get

up. M

>> you know this is a tough one because

teens socialize that way and you don't

want to take their phones away and they

cling to their iPads like you know like

my new bulldog strummer clings to a chew

toy you know it's like you can take it

away from them but like they hate you

for it. So I said view daylight cuz you

can't always see the sun but even if

it's overcast just get out for a few

minutes and take a walk your sleep will

be better.

>> I feel like I'm [clears throat] giving a

lecture in class.

>> That's amazing. That's what I want.

>> So we said hydrate sunlight. And then

number three, I know everyone's heard

it, but if you can exercise in the first

3 to four hours of your day, you could

do it in the afternoon without problem,

but there's a huge advantage to doing

cardiovascular resistance training in

the first 3 hours of your day.

>> Cardiovascular or resistance training.

>> Yeah. And in the book, I devote an

entire chapter, chapter 2, to exercise.

And I explain what I think personally is

the best way to structure an exercise

program for somebody who doesn't want to

be the most jacked, but wants muscle and

definition and strength. somebody that

doesn't need to run a marathon for a

record time, but wants endurance.

Somebody who wants to be able to sprint

reasonably fast and has middle distance

ability, too. And it's basically

structured. You either lift or do cardio

on alternating days, three days total of

lifting. Warm up reasonably low volume

of work sets, two to three work sets per

exercise, emphasizing compound

movements. So, not a like a preacher

curl or a tricep kickback. Those are

fine, but you're going to get a lot more

bang for your buck if you're doing

pull-ups, rows, dips,

>> multiple muscles at once,

>> multiple joints moving at once as

compound. Um, some hip hinge movement.

So, could be squat, hack squat, some

deadlifts, and I talk about how to get

specific aesthetic effects in there,

too. I mean, I'm by no means an exercise

physiologist, but I've been resistance

training since I was 16. I'm I'm now 50.

I'll be 51 in a month, so I feel great.

cardio at the start if you're doing

resistance training or not at all.

>> I warm up for 5 minutes of cardio and

then resistance train, but I do the

cardio on alternate days. Three days

total of cardio. One day of cardio is

long and slow for about an hour. One is

about 30 minutes at moderate intensity.

One is a short one like I did this

morning. Jumped on the air bike, pedal

easy for a minute, then go all out for

30 seconds, easy for 10, 30, 10, 30, 10,

30, 10, and then you're off the bike.

Basically max heart rate training. Yeah.

>> And the day after leg day, if you do

your legs right, take a rest day.

>> Yeah. But the here's the interesting

thing about exercise. You notice I

didn't say deliberate cold exposure.

>> You [clears throat] want to blow some

minds? I will go toe-to-toe with anybody

on the internet or off the internet.

Deliberate cold exposure does not raise

cortisol.

This much. It's amazing to me that the

same people that are suggesting moderate

to high-intensity exercise are saying

that deliberate cold exposure raises

cortisol. is simply not true. Not true

for women cuz a lot of people said, "Is

your book going to be for women and

men?" I distinguish between data when

there are data showing that it's

different for women and men. I

acknowledge when there's no data in

women and the data are very clear in

women and men, trivial increases in

cortisol, magnificent huge increases in

adrenaline, norepinephrine, and dopamine

from deliberate cold exposure. And that

those so so-called catakolamines are

great to have rolling into your day.

They're the things of alertness and

focus. The appropriate stressor for

cortisol, appropriate meaning the one

that you want, is a psychological

stressor. We know that.

>> Working out with weights for 45 minutes,

taking your sets near to failure, going

for a run for 30 minutes. So, the point

being, if you do this exercise in the

first three hours of your day, you're

getting a big inflection in cortisol.

Again, this is what you want. Now, some

people can't exercise first thing in the

day. They either don't want to or they

can't by way of schedule. And if you go

into exercise in the later part of your

day, that's fine. Your cortisol will

come back down. You can do some long

exhale breathing to slow your heart

rate. Andy Galpin talks about that. Take

a hot shower, which paradoxically lowers

your core body temperature. And then

helps you sleep. When you heat up the

surface of your body,

>> you have a thermostat in your brain

called the medial preoptic area, and it

goes, "Oh, the surface of my body is

warm. I should probably cool my core

body temperature down." And you fall

asleep better. You know, this is like

the the putting socks on effect or the

hot bath effect, right? I assume a

massage or something like that also.

>> Great. You have access to that in the

last hour of your day. Like uh we need

to learn more about your life.

[laughter]

>> My fiance used to be a masseuse for many

years. So she

>> awesome.

>> So when you exercise for a few days

early in the first three hours of your

day, let's say you do that two times.

The next morning you wake up feeling a

little bit more willing to exercise. Did

your willpower change? Well, in some

sense, yes. But what happened was your

cortisol entrainment mechanisms changed.

Your superc kaismatic nucleus all day is

clocking what you're doing. Let's say

you eat like 9, 12, snack at 3 and 6:30.

You have a food anticipatory signal. You

have ghrein is secreted makes you

hungry. We are clocks and the

synchronization of those clocks is very

very important. When you exercise at

roughly the same time of day, early in

the day, you will have more energy to

exercise in the first 15 minutes before

that. You'll notice you kind of start

stirring around. Yes, part of it is

cognitive, but a lot of it actually is

your brain is anticipating

exercises coming. Oh, cool. That's why I

I teach neuro anatomy, so this is fun.

>> I have a a brain here in front of me. It

does open up in case you want to open it

up. But you just reminded me of

something.

>> You reminded me of something that I saw

you talk about, which was the anterior

mid-sulate cortex.

>> And I think you described this as being

one of the most interesting

>> discoveries of neuroscience. So

singulate cortex I mean it's not

directly exposed here but the anterior

mids singulate cortex would sit

somewhere like there this is an amazing

structure right I mean just to remind

people like when we feel some sort of

pressure social pressure physical

pressure that we hate and we decide I'm

going to lean into this like I'm going

to compete or I'm going to push through

this internal or external resistance

neurons in the anterior midsulate cortex

are just firing away and if that area is

stimulated my colleague Joe Parvevesy at

Stanford showed this he's a neurosurgeon

people say I feel like a challenge is

coming on and I'm going to lean into it

this is the brain area of tenacity

and the amazing thing is it has

connections all over the brain with

reward systems etc so it's collecting

information about when it gets activated

what's going on in the world that makes

you feel pressure when you feel like

pushing back when you don't but the Best

part is it is highly subject to

plasticity. People who diet successfully

their anterior mids singulate cortex

gets bigger and more active. People who

embark on a new exercise program adding

some component of exercise. For me it's

mobility work because I've got a little

stiff over the years. I know. So when

you do something that you don't want to

do, that you don't reflexively do, your

anterior midsulate cortex gets bigger

and more willing to engage in

challenging things going forward.

>> Yeah. So that's the key point, which is

that sets you up to be able to do more

challenging things in the future.

>> That's right. Why would you do

deliberate cold exposure? I'll tell you

why. Because your ability to sit calmly

or even not so calmly when your system

is flooded with adrenaline and

norepinephrine and to be able to trigger

that with cold water safely like cold

shower, getting into a cold ice bath,

it's safe as long as it's not so cold.

As long as you're not hyperventilating

beforehand on purpose, that carries over

to your ability to keep your head

straight when other things trigger

adrenaline. You don't get 10 stress

systems, you get one. And stress looks

like your adrenaline goes and it comes

down slowly. This is a hallmark of

stress. Cortisol goes up goes down.

Right? So the Oh, you are prepared, my

friend. My goodness, you should be a

university professor. You want to teach

with me at Stanford? So I came up with a

model for arousal, right? People hear

arousal and they think, "Oh, it's got to

be romantic arousal." It can be, but

arousal is really just how alert or

sleepy you are. So you can be really

sleepy, like in a coma, or you can be in

full-blown panic. Nobody wants that. But

a seesaw is the right analogy here

because we have this thing called the

autonomic nervous system. And the

autonomic nervous system is made up of

two parts, parasympathetic and the

sympathetic nervous system. They're in

different parts of the body. They both

connect to most every organ. But in

general, when you are relaxed, that's

what we call the reflection of

parasympathetic tone going up. When

you're stressed, it's the reflection of

sympathetic tone going up. But as you

get sleepy, your parasympathetic nervous

system starts to dominate a bit. And as

you get really sleepy, it dominates more

when you wake up in the morning. And

then if you do the right things like

hydrate, get sunlight and some exercise,

well then your cortisol goes up and

you're going to be more alert. The

ability to navigate stress of all kinds

depends on your ability to do what I

call is control the tightness of this

hinge. When you train your ability to

think, breathe, stay calm, when your

system is flooded with adrenaline and

that happens later in a way that was

nonvoluntary, something happened that

you didn't want to happen, your brain

immediately flits to the understanding

of that place and you are able to

maintain thoughtfulness. You can know to

not speak. That's often the best thing

you can do. You know to react or not

react. In fact, when you get into a cold

plunge, one of the beautiful things

about cold is that your prefrontal

cortex that's involved in strategy

setting and making meaning out of what's

going on, its activity is greatly

suppressed for the first 20 to 30

seconds. Know this about every stressful

circumstance. In the first 20 to 30

seconds, you are brain damaged. You are

brain damaged. You're you are in that

mode of like you could react physically.

Sometimes that can save your life, but

most times you just don't want to do

anything. Step out of the way of the

car, get away from the aggressor,

whatever. But most times you're best off

not saying a darn thing. And then your

prefrontal cortex slowly starts coming

back online. And then you're back again

cuz you're ruminating, you know? And

>> this is good relationship advice.

>> Very good relationship advice.

[laughter] I wish I had learned it long

ago. Right. Actually, last night I

looked on Twitter and I saw something

that was both perplexing and a little

bit upsetting to me. And I went to sleep

like, I know how to deal with this. Some

long exhale breathing, which will slow

your heart rate. and we'll talk about

that. But I woke up this morning, turns

out it was a complete misunderstanding

and everything was reversed. But last

night I thought about sending a text,

but I thought later at night the

prefrontal cortex is already diminished.

This is why stress feels so much harder

to deal with at night

>> and prefrontal cortex. We should

describe that logic and stuff.

>> So um frontal cortex, so here it's

logical. You have the frontal and motor

areas here. And your prefrontal cortex

is basically a big patch of real estate

behind your forehead that in humans is

greatly expanded compared to in other

mammals. I don't like calling them

lower, but they have less prefrontal

cortex. So, they're more driven by their

impulses. One of the most incredible

things that every child and adult needs

to develop is what's called top- down

inhibition. You feel an impulse, but you

resist the impulse. M

>> in fact the way I've mostly trained my

dog strummer because it works is I

taught him at 9 weeks of age put down a

piece of food of course he goes for it

he loves food and you teach him wait and

he sits there and you teach him to look

at you and then now he I can have him

moving toward a piece of food and I say

wait and his nose can be this far and

he'll just stop. He has great top- down

inhibition. Is it about food? No. Am I

trying to torture him? Of course not.

It's so that if I say wait, he can

suppress his arousal.

>> This is one of the most valuable skills.

And people with frontal damage show an

inability to do that, which is why

sometimes they're violent or they say

inappropriate things. People who are

tired, stressed, drunk, prefrontal

cortex activity is suppressed. Get in a

cold shower. First 20, 30 seconds, it's

kind of fun. You're you're like, here I

am with less of a brain than I had

getting in. And then 30 seconds later

you're like, I can do this.

>> This explains why you do things tired.

>> Don't do things tired. Don't say things

tired. Impulse control is way worse.

>> So when I heard you talk about the

anterior mids singular cortex and that

there was this part of the brain that

was kind of like the willpower or you

described it then as the tenacity

muscle. It completely changed my

relationship with hard things because it

made me realize at some sort of like I

guess some conceptual level that every

hard thing I overcome is better

equipping me like when I you know curl

weights in the gym to do harder things

tomorrow.

>> Yes.

>> When I heard other oh there's like a

neurological I'm making a neurological

investment in my future and then you

talked there about doing voluntary

difficult things like the cold plunge

whatever

>> or learning a new language. It can be

cognitive in nature. It can be learning

to dance if that's stressful for you.

And it can be anything that creates some

resistance for you, internal resistance,

anything of that sort. This is a a

beautiful structure because it's wired

into cognitive capacities and our

ability to build them and challenges

with that to emotional challenges.

>> We're kind of optimizing our lives

towards comfort though, aren't we?

That's like a winning formula is more

comfortable things.

>> I think Jack Dorsey said it best.

There's this great video of him online.

It was it was a small lecture that he

was giving where he said anytime we

exchange ourselves, our money, our time

for convenience, we are almost always

giving up something that's like

fundamentally useful for us

neurologically. And it's okay to do. I

order food on Door Dash cuz there's

great food and I don't have a lot of

time to cook. I'd like to devote my time

to other things. I'm trading for

convenience. But if you're aware of the

trade-off, you're much better off. And

the real question is what you're going

to do with that additional time. While

I'm against, you know, overoptimization

to the point that it pulls you out of

life, like it diminishes life, I am all

for striving and optimization quote

unquote in ways that allow you to lean

into the rest of your life with more

vigor. I think Arthur Brooks says it

best. You know I mean we are wired and

meaning comes from striving and within

striving is some struggle and within

struggle is also the release from

struggle and that's also very uh

satisfying. Here's the overoptimization

thing to me in a nutshell which is

there are people for whom doing two of

the things I described for 5 minutes

each per day will experience a

significant improvement in their mental

and physical health. There are people

for whom they're sort of like junkyard

dogs. They can live on anything. They

have a ton of vigor and they're going be

like, "Yeah, I didn't feel that much

from like drinking some water and

getting sunlight." Cool. I got you.

You're one of those people who can fall

asleep in front of the screen, get up,

and just keep going on a, you know,

sugary muffin and something like great.

>> But everyone can afford to take a look

at what they're doing now and try and

move the needle toward more vigor,

well-being,

happiness, peace by doing certain

things.

>> Do you become more sensitive to the

thing when you stop doing the thing?

>> Depends on the thing. So, for instance,

if people like I talk about nutrition in

there and all we it's one of the cards I

actually cover everything from the all

meat diet to vegan diets to I really go

into the literature so people can choose

but really if you look at what most

people could benefit from doing and you

could do this with vegan or vegetarian

it's a little harder but the best diet

is going to be the following right not

too many calories not too few that's

individual you can calculate that it's

an easy thing to do but I provide a way

to do that you need to get what's what

are high complete protein to calorie

ratio proteins. This is a concept I came

up with because if you look at the

literature, yes, we need the essential

amino acids. So that's a complete

protein, but you can get that from beans

and rice, but to get 30 g of complete

protein from beans and rice, you're

going to consume about four to five

times as many calories as is required if

you get it from a chicken breast.

>> So this is the the factor that's kind of

obvious, but no one ever talks about. So

you want to eat some high complete

protein to calorie ratio protein. So you

know eggs, lean meat, fish and then

everyone knows you need fiber,

>> right? So vegetables and fruits. But

what I will say is that many people who

remove us starches entirely.

>> Mhm. [clears throat]

>> Or remove vegetables entirely will find

that they their autoimmune issues

resolve and there are reasons for that

and we have to acknowledge that. But

most people should be eating some

vegetables and fruit for micronutrients

and fiber. Low sugar fermented food.

very clear Justin Sonnenberg's work from

Stanford very clear lowers the

inflammatome in fact when they had

people eat more fiber for many people

inflammatory markers went up no one

likes to talk about that especially not

the vegans but too much fiber can be

noxious for some people and

pro-inflammatory so low sugar fermented

foods like sauerkraut kimchi beet kvass

is delicious problem is they tend to be

expensive but you can make your own and

there's recipes online to do these

things I don't want to get into the seed

oil debate. Just eat just use olive oil.

It's delicious. It's relatively

inexpensive nowadays to get real olive

oil. Small amounts of butter. Okay. Like

like why are we even debating seed oils?

It's so dumb. It's like the the seed oil

debate is like the fastest way to kill

neurons that I'm aware of. You know,

it's like so dumb. It's like because the

studies are not well done. You're

comparing a processed food diet that

includes seed oils versus or you're

talking clean seed oils versus a high

meat diet with processed meat. It's a

it's a mess. It's like as a scientist,

you just look at this and you go like

this field sucks.

>> Like it someone wants to have a

magnificent career in science. Go into

the field of nutrition and do some

really good studies because the studies

are a little lousy. 90% of them like you

can look at it. You don't even have to

be trained in nutrition. You go there

five different variables here and four

over here. This is like what you would

call a bad experiment.

>> So olive oil the data are great. It's

impressive. And then starches are great

for fueling muscles and glycogen and

brain, but you don't want to overdo

them. And the way that people tend to

overdo starches is by eating starches

combined with a lot of fats. So

sourdough bread is great. Sourdough

bread with butter is even better if you

ask me. Sourdough bread with equal

amounts of butter and bread, you're

starting to get into problems. It's very

hard for people to go from like to

overeat starches unless they have a lot

of fats with them or sugar with them. on

starches. Is there an impact? I think

I've heard you talk about an impact on

your sleep with what you eat late at

night.

>> Many people who don't eat enough

starches find that they have sleep

issues. And there are reasons for this

because we talk about comfort foods.

>> Typically, people think junk foods when

they think comfort foods, but foods that

increase glucose lower cortisol. H,

that's weird. Starches lower cortisol.

And you want your cortisol low at night.

Helps you fall and stay asleep. Now, you

don't want to eat too close to bedtime.

You also don't want to have gnawing

hunger at bedtime. We talked about that.

But here's the interesting thing. What

is cortisol? We I should have mentioned

this earlier. What is cortisol? Is it a

stress hormone? No. It's a hormone

that's released during stress. But

cortisol's job is not to deal with

stress. Cortisol's job is to mobilize

energy in the body. When cortisol goes

up, glucose is mobilized and other

fuels, too. So when you eat starches,

you buffer cortisol.

There's a very clear relationship here.

So people who are not eating enough

starches who then allow themselves that

bowl of rice or a bowl of pasta in their

final meal of the day or a little bit at

lunch and at dinner, maybe even a bowl

of oatmeal breakfast, they feel more

even psychologically. They have more

physical energy. Sometimes people with

chronic stress issues notice they stop

shaking. People with autoimmune issues

sometimes resolve those because your

cortisol is buffered. Mhm.

>> Because your blood glucose is elevated

and so your body isn't tapping into the

survival system to try and mobilize

glucose. So

>> I have this outstanding question that I

have to ask you. It goes back to the

picture that you drew of the graph.

Where is that one? You said high

cortisol in the morning is a good thing.

>> Yep.

>> So what if I pick up my phone first

thing in the morning and I look at my

worst emails

>> in some sense from the perspective of

spiking your cortisol? Like it's a good

thing. But can you do it outside while

getting sunlight? I was wondering if it

matters like how the cortisol comes

because what if I stress myself out in

the morning? I I really

>> doesn't matter. The problem is the

rumination that comes with stress,

right? So, you know, the nice thing

about physical stressors that we control

like a workout or a cold plunge is that

they have an onset and an offset. And

yes, they start faster than they end,

right? You have stress and it kind of

carries over. You ruminate. But

psychological stressors tend to bang

around in our brain a lot and late at

night and they tend to come back. I will

say this, I think 2027 is going to be

the year that we close the coffin on

this cortisol is bad thing.

>> So, how should I think about cort

cortisol? Because right now, I think of

it as the stress hormone.

>> It's to mobilize energy,

>> okay?

>> So, you can use it,

>> okay?

>> And if you're going to sleep at night,

you don't need to mobilize energy so you

can use it. You need to rest and reset

your body.

>> Okay?

>> Cortisol is an energyromoting

hormone. So if I walk up on stage, my

cortisol level, like before I go up on

stage and there's a big audience,

whatever, my cortisol level is going to

go up then.

>> Yeah. If you're stressed about it, maybe

a little bit more, but it's it's it's a

preparation hormone. You're preparing

for adversity, but also great things.

There are these beautiful studies from a

guy named James McGaw and Larry Cahill,

which showed do you know that if you

want somebody to learn something, you

know what you do? You spike their

cortisol before, during, or after that

thing should work. Why not? Trauma does

that and you never forget. All you do is

work on trying to remove the emotional

load of that traumatic thing.

>> Wait, so if does that mean that someone

who's listening to this podcast right

now in the gym

>> is going to have better knowledge recall

of what we talked about than someone

who's listening in bed?

>> Great question. So I have a a chapter

that's all about learning motivation and

plasticity. And we've all heard exercise

makes your brain better. How? Why? Turns

out it's very important to understand.

There are two ways it does it or at

least two. One is it raises your levels

of arousal. Exercise doesn't make you

smarter. Exercise makes you more alert

coming out of the exercise so you can go

learn things because it turns out you

have to be alert to learn things. In

particular, you need adrenaline and

cortisol elevated to learn things. So

when people say, you know, weightlifting

makes is good for your brain. Cardio is

good for your brain. Turns out long slow

cardio, my endurance friends aren't

going to like this. Not that great for

your brain. It's not bad for your brain,

but it's not that great for your brain.

Turns out an intense weightlifting

session or high-intensity interval

training session in the 4 hours after

that you are primed for learning. Why?

You got a lot of stimulatory molecules

in your body and you can focus better.

>> What about if I'm a podcaster and I want

to be able to ask good questions and use

my mouth and my brain uh in that context

not not necessarily just learning but

performance of my sort of cognition.

>> So the performance curve basically is

inverted to you. If you're not alert

enough, you can't do what you need to

do. If you're too alert, you can't do

what you need to do or learn. So, you

want to be at the top of that inverted

U. And a lot of what learning is about

and a lot of what the intermedulate

cortex is about is getting from I don't

want to do it up to the top of that U.

Then it's usually about not getting too

stressed. Now, I learned the best trick

for this, like the two best tricks. And

in fact, that will take us to number

five. You can use any time of of day,

which is use physiological size to

reduce stress fast. Okay. Okay. So, I

have a a chapter on stress mitigation

and it's got essentially two components.

One is how to limit stress in the

moment.

>> Okay.

>> Very very important to know how to limit

stress in the moment. And here,

>> why is it so important?

>> Oh gosh. Because meditation, great

night's sleep, massage,

social relations, being wellfed,

hydrated, all of that helps you buffer

stress. But when something happens and

your heart rate is too high or you're

shaking and you can't organize your

thoughts in the way you want, none of

that helps. you've gone over the line.

You're too far on the arousal spectrum

towards alert.

And it was about 2016 that I realized

I'm going to take a significant portion

of my lab and work on this problem. I

want to find real time tools for

mitigating stress. So I started hanging

around with people from special

operations who sit in ice baths and cold

water. And they don't actually do ice

baths by the way in the SEAL teams. They

spend a lot of time in cold water during

their training. And I started talking to

people in performance fields in

particular neurosurgeons, people who

deal with life or death circumstances

for many, many years and maintain

immense calm. One of my closest

childhood friends, he's you should have

him on this podcast. It's his name is

Dr. Eddie Chang and he's a neurosurgeon

at UCSF. He's the chair of neurosurgery

and he's brought people out of lockin

syndrome to speak through AI. He's also

a bioengineer. He's also been my friend

since we were 7 years old. And we talk

three times a week these days about

science. And I actually visited his

laboratory and got to see him take a

golf ballized tumor out of a guy's

forebrain while the guy was awake.

>> Wow.

>> Eddie is the calmst guy you'll ever

meet. Why? Because a movement of less

than a millimeter in the wrong direction

for him could cost a patient's life.

People have ways to calm down in real

time. So I teamed up with a colleague,

his name is David Spiegel. He's our uh

at that time he was our associate chair

of psychiatry and he studies hypnosis

but clinical hypnosis for smoking

sessation pain management and anxiety

and I should say mainly Malise Yilz

Balban in my lab did the study she built

this stress lab with VR and stress and

that's a whole other thing and then we

did this study where about a hundred or

so subjects were fixed with um trackers

that measured heart rate and heart rate

variability and sleep and people were in

one of four groups. They either

meditated for 5 minutes a day or they

did box breathing. Inhale, hold, exhale,

hold for 5 minutes. Okay?

>> Like 4 seconds each or something.

>> There's a way you can measure it, which

is the carbon dioxide tolerance test.

Like how well you can control an exhale

will tell you a little bit about how

stressed you are. When you're stressed,

you tend to blow off carbon dioxide very

quickly. And when you're less stressed,

it tends to shift towards long exhales

become easier. So one of the groups, and

then I'll say what the mechanism is, did

cyclic hyperventilation.

Some people call this Wimhof breathing,

tumo breathing, pranayyama breathing.

It's big inhales,

passive exhales. Repeat it for five

minutes. [snorts]

[sighs]

Massively spikes adrenaline, which isn't

a bad thing. You're controlling it

anyway. Does not spike cortisol very

much, incidentally.

And when you do those exhales, you're

blowing off a lot of carbon dioxide, so

it shifts your internal state and tends

to make people very alert. or they did

there was a fourth condition where they

did a double inhale long exhale repeat

the so-called physiological sigh. So

Jack Feldman at UCLA and some other

folks in the 30 1930s had observed that

animals and people when they're very

relaxed would do this kind of strange

pattern of breathing where they would go

[sighs]

[gasps]

it's a double inhale long exhale.

Jack's lab discovers there's a brain

area called the parapacial nucleus which

is specifically there to generate this

double inhale exhale pattern in animals

and in humans wild nature doesn't make

mistakes like that okay turns out there

are two breathing centers one is in

called the pre-bot singer complex named

after a bottle of wine [gasps]

pattern of breathing where you inhale

exhale what that you alternate this

other structure the parapacial nucleus

which we all have is involved in anytime

you double up the inhales or exhales.

And it's involved in breathing while you

speak or sing or eat. And it generates

these physiological size which it turns

out get triggered in environments where

there's not enough oxygen or when you

get claustrophobic or when you get very

stressed, carbon dioxide goes up. Your

brain senses that and it triggers the

gas reflex. That double inhale maximally

inflates the millions, hundreds of

millions of little sacks in the lungs.

And then when you exhale, you offload

the greatest amount of carbon dioxide.

So if you just go,

you're not offloading as much carbon

dioxide. But if you [snorts]

[sighs and gasps]

second short inhale

takes these little sacks in your lungs,

which are like balloons at a kids party,

and they're empty, but they're fluid

lined on the so there's some surface

tension inside them. they're sticking

together. So, you go, it's the double

inhale that opens those up and then you

offload the carbon dioxide. Now, that's

great. But the real magic of deliberate

long exhales is that they slow your

heart rate down through a process called

respiratory sinus arrhythmia. This is

like the most important thing for anyone

exed stress, exercise, sleep, and

wellness because the wild thing is we

have this Vegas nerve. Everyone likes

talk about the vagus nerve. It's a

massive nerve bundle that collects

sensory information and chemical

information from the organs of the body

and sends it up to the brain. Cool. And

it's classified as parasympathetic

calming. But you know what's funny?

Neuroscientists when they want to wake

up and a person during an experiment

like a neurosurgery experiment, they

stimulate the vagus. A treatment for for

depression is to stimulate the Vegas.

Guess what that does? makes people more

alert. So, it's a mixed nerve. But the

really cool part about the vagus is that

it's not all ascending.

The 85% of the information is going up

from the body through the vagus. But

there's another pathway too and it goes

down and it goes down to your heart and

it controls the slowing of the heart

rate when you exhale. Heart rate

variability is the slowing of your heart

rate when you exhale.

You want to increase your HRV, do a few

deliberate exhales during the day.

People go, "How do I get my HRV up?"

Well, yeah, you do some V2 max training,

right? Like, you know, obviously you do

some max heart rate training, some HIT

workouts, etc. You really want to

increase your HRV in sleep and while

waking, just do some deliberate exhales

during the day because that's the

parasympathetic, the calming arm of the

Vegas pushing down

on your heart rate. And all of the

groups I described saw benefits, but it

was the people who did these

physiological size that benefited the

most. So then I started exploring, well,

how fast does heart rate slow down with

physiological size? And it turns out you

don't need to do it for 5 minutes. Do it

once. You just go, "Okay, you're feeling

stressed. You're going on stage. You're

waiting for a diagnosis. You're you

don't feel you feel too alert relative

to how you want to feel for whatever

reason, good or bad. You're about to get

married, right? You whatever.

>> You just

[sighs]

[gasps]

until your lungs are empty and it's

immediate."

And I for me that was immensely

gratifying. Yes. Because it's fun to

publish papers. if we publish it and

sell reports and Meliss gets let's the

lion share the credit for that there

were other people on the paper but she

did so much hard work from that and

analysis I was so gratified because I'm

like ah finally like if I didn't sleep

well or if I something stressful even

though I slept well I can calm myself

down like like that

>> I thought real time tools for stress are

what we all need the interesting thing

is that you can also raise your stress

threshold and a lot of the stress

mitigation chapter is also about how to

do that we need to train for discomfort

so that the little things don't feel so

big.

>> Yeah,

>> this is also important in survival

situations, right? You need to be able

to think very clearly about what order

of operations to take, what direction to

escape through. This is not about like

setting yourself to tolerate more pain

and abuse. This is about the exact

opposite. So, this is about safety. This

is about self-p protection. And this is

about noticing when you're when we're

alert but calm. We can notice the subtle

ripples in people around us who needs

[clears throat] our attention who we

really don't like

>> but we never really realized it. You can

notice that stuff.

>> A lot of people they wake up at like 2

3:00 a.m. in the morning.

>> Yeah.

>> In the middle of the night and they

don't really know why. They don't know

how to get back to bed. They start

worrying and remuner remunerating.

>> Very very common.

>> Yeah. So what they can use this as a

tool in that moment

>> definitely 10 long long deliberate

exhales. There's also this really crazy

trick that I put in the book has

indirect scientific support. You want it

like best way to fall back asleep. You

want to hear this crazy this is so nuts.

To fall asleep or to fall back asleep,

you need to stop thinking about your

body position. H turns out there's a

direct relationship through a few steps,

but there's a dedicated circuit I should

say between your eyes, their movements,

and your cerebellum, which is involved

in propriception and balance and a

number of other things. We call we call

the cerebellum the mini brain, but it's

this this guy back here. We really get

nerdy. These hyperfoliated loes back

here. Foliators are just folds. It's

just nerd speak for foldy bumpy. It's

involved in balance. It's involved in

learning. It's actually very important

for generating and responding to the

error signals between what you're trying

to do and what you can do. That error

signal turns out to be one of the most

important things for generating learning

to make errors through genuine attempts.

And your cerebellum is critical for

that. It's also involved in timing. So,

you need to kind of turn off your

recognition of your own limbs to fall

asleep. How do you do that? You know

what works with babies? Walk back and

forth at a particular pace. And this was

defined in this Japanese study. And have

people swing the baby back and forth

just gently as they do it. And the baby

falls asleep. Guess what? Parents figure

out the exact cadence with a very small

margin of error through trial and error

to figure out how to get their kid to

sleep. It's like a natural experiment.

It's been looked at in the lab.

>> Turns out when you rock back and forth,

your eyes move. This is a very, very

ancient system that exists in all jawed

animals, including us, that as we move

through space, walking, running,

swimming, whatever. The world is gliding

by, what we call optic flow. You would

see the world blurry. But you have a

compensatory eye movement that

unbeknownst to you because of a

connection between your eyes and these

brain stem areas whose names aren't

important right now and your cerebellum

creates a visual slip error and your

eyes automatically offset that error. So

when I go like this,

the world seems stable. And it turns out

there's a pattern of eye movement that

can shut down the propriceptive circuits

in the cerebellum make you forget your

limb position and it greatly facilitates

the speed at which you fall back asleep.

>> Okay. You're going to close your eyes.

Great. You're going to move your eyes

slowly to one side underneath your

eyelids, then to the other side.

>> Mhm.

>> Then up, then down. Now you're going to

move them counterclockwise in a

circleish

and then clockwise in a circleish. And

now still with your eyes closed, you're

going to kind of point them towards your

nostrils. You're not going to cross your

eyes and you're going to do a long

exhale.

Great. That done two or three times

generally has people waking up the next

morning and like wild. What happens?

What happened is your propriceptive

circuits are shut down. Now, that's kind

of fun to do and you'll see and it costs

nothing and it generally works. Some

people, if they're really, really

stressed, it might not work, but this is

what I do if I wake up in the middle of

the night. I usually go to the bathroom,

get back in bed, do long exhale

breathing, and I do that and I wake up

the next morning. It really works well.

So well, in fact, that there's a company

based on work done from two MIT

scientists. They have a sleep mask that

generates this pattern of eye movements

through a little electrode behind the

ear. It just like and it stimulates the

extraocular muscles in just the right

patterns. And I tried it and you fall

right asleep.

>> You're joking.

>> No.

>> And it monitors REM.

>> No, you know, we monitor REM through

like an eight sleep or a Whoop or some

other device through changes in heart

rate and breathing. This is direct

monitoring of REM.

It's wild. And it can control your eye

movements to induce more REM if you want

more REM. There will be a time very soon

like within the next 12 to 14 months

when because of devices like the one

they and others are making when you're

going to be able to say, you know what,

I want 2 hours of deep sleep. I want 2

hours of REM across a 6-hour night

because I can't afford to sleep my

ration of eight. And you will be

generating those eye movements during

sleep in order to facilitate, not force,

but facilitate those patterns of sleep.

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for a $25 credit. Did I hear you say

that there's a peptide that can help

your REM sleep? Yes, I have no

affiliation to to it because um it's

called pinealon. I I will tell you in

the book I do not talk about hormone

therapies, peptides or psychedelics.

The book is about what I know for sure.

Hormones, peptide therapies and

psychedelics are at the front edge right

now. I'm very much involved in

looking at the research, talking to the

people that are doing these things. And

yes, I I dabble in these things, right?

I'm very interested. I experiment on

myself and I'm an adult. I can do that.

So, pinealon is very interesting because

I found that if I took an itty bitty bit

every third night, I tried this

experiment for about a month. I got

massive amounts of REM sleep that night,

but also on subsequent nights. I hosted

a Dr. Abud Bakri on my podcast who's in

my view is the most knowledgeable

physician on the topic of peptides.

>> Oh, I saw that episode. It's amazing.

>> He's amazing. And I think you guys would

have an even better conversation,

frankly. But in any event, he tells me

that pinealon is potentially involved.

There are some data supporting its use

for encouraging pinealy health. So the

actual health of the pineal pineal

gland.

>> Yeah. The pineal gland which makes

melatonin and it does other things too.

So I think pinealon is a great tool to

use sporadically. I don't use it

regularly. You know as long as we're

talking about peptides I do think that

there's I mean I'm peptide curious is

you know I'm from the Bay Area called

peptide [laughter] curious. I have not

tried any GLPS yet, but I'm getting

curious about very very low dose

tepatide or reatrite.

>> I'm peptide curious, but I'm scared.

>> Yeah,

>> I'm scared because I don't You've got to

inject most of them, right?

>> It's a tiny little thing, you know. Um,

>> what's your take on peptides as like a c

It's a big category, isn't it? Bloody

everything seems to be a peptide these

days.

>> Here's my opinion. It will be popular

with some people, unpopular with others,

but

obviously as with hormone therapies or

anything else or supplements like sleep,

hydration, sunlight, exercises,

nutrition, like you need all that stuff.

The behavioral tools are the foundation.

>> Great things can happen when you build

on a foundation.

Okay, things can happen when you build

on non-foundation, but it doesn't last

long. But the combination of the two can

be pretty awesome, especially if

somebody has the means and the interest.

So the GLPS

>> Mhm.

>> which are the weight loss drugs.

>> The weight loss drugs. I think Redat

True Tide is amazing. It's not just a

GLP. It also hits the glucagon and GIP

pathway. This is the one that Lily

invested. Eli Lily invested hundreds of