00:01:36 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:01:36] S1: Your podcast launched in January '21 and has changed the way millions of people live their lives. This morning, I got my son. I delayed my caffeine a little bit, probably not as much as you would like. And you famously got our firm's founder, Mark Andreessen, to stop drinking alcohol. I'm not there yet. But I'm wondering if looking back, you remember a moment where you were like, holy cow. People aren't just listening to me. They're like changing their daily habits because of what I say. [00:02:06] S0: Well, it's been a wild ride. I didn't anticipate any of it, but I'm delighted that people are doing things for their health. And I don't know whether or not to accept by saying thank you or apologize that Mark stopped drinking. I know he enjoyed the occasional drink. [00:02:21] S1: Want He's grumpy about it.
00:02:22 · Andrew Huberman
[00:02:22] S0: Yeah. Well, I wanna be very clear. The data say zero is better than any. Two per week is probably the upper limit for an adult nonalcoholic, and I don't think Mark is alcoholic. He could, in theory, have two drinks. But when I suggested that, he goes, no. He kind of did what many people do, which is sometimes none is easier to stick to than some. And I do think that alcohol can be enjoyed, and if one wants to do that, just to think about doing some of the other things that can be beneficial. But to directly answer your question, I didn't anticipate any of it. As I said, I'm delighted people are taking measures for their health. And at some point, realized, woah, people are starting to do things, and I couldn't tell whether or not it was because of the science that we were presenting, or because the protocols I know work extremely well. The nice thing is I don't take credit for the actual protocols because in most cases, with rare exception, like some things related to stress mitigation, in most cases, the protocols come from other people's science. So in looking at the fields of science and health education, most people who've been out there have been talking about their own science. So doing it this way affords me a certain amount of freedom, have to be careful too, because I'm talking about other people's science often. But I love to learn, and I love to teach. So for me, nothing makes me happier than reading papers and sharing what I think is interesting information, and trying things out and seeing what works. And the people that have been close to me will tell you that for my whole life, when I've learned something I thought was cool, I'm out there teaching about it, whether people wanna listen or not. So they just kinda stuck a microphone in front of me, and here I am.
00:04:05 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:04:05] S1: Amazing. You've been very transparent about your daily protocols. Like I mentioned, sunning your eyes, delaying caffeine, but also rotating exercise by day, cold punch in sauna, doing yoga nidra, taking a variety of supplements. But maybe you can just walk us through like yesterday. I'm curious. What did you eat? What exercise did you do? What supplements did you take? What of your advice did you follow and what did you not? [00:04:30] S0: A single day. So I wake up, I use the bathroom like everybody else. I [00:04:35] S1: Do you get on your phone while you're in bed?
00:04:36 · Andrew Huberman
[00:04:36] S0: No. Okay. No. Phones Very disappointing. Phones out of the room while I sleep. If I didn't love, love, love my eight sleep so much, I would figure out a way to have no WiFi on in the house at all at night. Interesting. So I woke up, I'm groggy like everybody else, my mind starts going places, you know, it's discombobulated on waking. I don't think I've ever woken up and just done a big yawn, and been like, life is so good. I wake up and I think, I have this to do, I have that to do. So the first thing that I do is get up, use the restroom, and then I go do... These days, I do a five minute meditation. I set my phone for five minutes, and I do a standard meditation of just breathing. This I think is an extremely important practice that I haven't talked a lot about. If for no other reason, then it gets you very aware of what the inputs to your brain are about to be, and it also makes you very aware of how chaotic it can be in our minds. And after talking to a number of people who worked on the science of meditation, in particular folks out at University of Wisconsin who've done a bunch of the brain imaging, it's very clear that the real benefits of meditation come from not quieting the mind, but from being able to just observe how chaotic it is, and see that as something slightly separate from the quote unquote observer. And we have circuits that we think underlie the observer versus all the monkey mind stuff, as they call it. But I always thought that meditation was about achieving a really peaceful state. Turns out, it's about observing the chaos. And so the best way I can describe this practice in terms of its utility is just as with exercise, if you get a burn in your legs or the final repetitions of lifting weights, that's what triggers the adaptation. With meditation in terms of consciousness, and focus, and awareness, I think the lactate of the mind, as it was described to me, so I didn't come up with that phrase, the lactate of the mind is to be able to experience that chaos, observe it, and not do anything with it. That's what allows you to move into your day with, I think, more awareness Mhmm. Of what is a meaningful thought or reaction and what isn't. Okay. So I do that five minutes. These days, I find the buzzer goes off without me going, when is this over? When is this over? And then I get sunlight in my eyes.
00:06:51 · Andrew Huberman, Daisy Wolf
I'm absolutely religious about that. Sometimes I go up on my roof. Sometimes I go for a walk. [00:06:57] S1: Were you home yesterday? [00:06:58] S0: I was. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I take some water with me usually, drink some water, get some sunlight in my eyes. Today, I woke up in a hotel. I was facing east in the morning, so it was great. Got to actually see the sunrise, but cloudy day, overcast day, I'm getting sunlight in my eyes first thing. If I wake up long before the sun is out, I have a 10,000 lux artificial light, and I'll get in front of that thing just as I make coffee in the morning or do my thing. I then... If I'm going to exercise, I drink caffeine right away. I think this is something that I've tried to be clear about, but hasn't always been clear. If I'm gonna exercise, I need caffeine, so I'm not waiting even thirty minutes. Mhmm. I'm gonna drink caffeine, so I drink yerba mate, which is my preferred source of caffeine for a long time now. And then I exercise. And my exercise routine is very simple, and I might just share it because I've found that it's been very beneficial not just for me, but for women I've trained with, men, people of all ages. I've followed it for thirty five years, and I think it's the most time efficient and effective exercise program. [00:07:57] S1: Mhmm.
00:07:57 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:07:57] S1: Mhmm. [00:07:57] S0: And it's really straightforward. Three days a week lifting weights, two to three days a week doing some sort of quote unquote cardio. The cardio, I'll just explain first, something where you get your heart rate way, way up safely. So could be the rower, could be the air dime bike, the one with the push pull with the arms while you're pedaling, could be running. Pick something that you can go close to max effort without hurting yourself. This is a really big deal, especially now that I'm 50. It's like I feel quite proud of the fact that I've never had a major injury, and I feel great at 50, mostly because what I didn't do. A lot of people are talking about all the things they did do. It's all the things I didn't do. I never hopped on someone else's workout just because I was challenged. That's how you hurt yourself. [00:08:39] S1: Mhmm. [00:08:40] S0: And and I picked things that felt right to me. Cycling doesn't feel good to me. Running and the air dime bike do. So warm up for a minute, pedal easy in my case, then go twenty seconds all out effort, ten seconds rest, repeat that eight times. You're done. That's one cardio workout. You're getting max heart rate, close to max heart rate. This is v o two max type stuff, and you're... It's so fast. Okay. [00:09:04] S1: So yesterday was Sunday. What is Sunday?