Joe Rogan Experience #1513 — Andrew Huberman Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Andrew, how are you? What's happening, man? and we're trying to figure out the answers to two problems. The first problem is how to regenerate the damaged nervous system, than try and tackle the really high level stuff like flow and states of awe, Would that be accurate? creative when we want to be creative, all of that stems from the nervous system. The other organs

2:56 And this is, it's a controversial subject. So there is something special about the real estate in our skulls. But that said, the job of the brain is really to combine our sound waves, touch, you know, physical pressure on the skin. It's like a spotlight. discuss in detail if you want, which kind of arise spontaneously. They're kind of running My world will become more like portrait mode. I'll see you and everything else will become blurry.

6:22 And behavior is done. understand how these states of mind and body relate. Because the autonomic nervous system, into these two states. We would greatly improve human health and human performance Okay. So when you say sleep, the state of sleep, like what techniques are you talking about to goggles. We wire them into a lot of gear that allows us to measure things like heart rate,

9:31 These are patients that have other issues, right? Yeah. You don't flip it open. He's looking at it already. the ability to learn and acquire new functions in the nervous system or where our biology kind of cliffs off and can't support us in what we want to do. They're talking about behind the ear. told me, you're not going to have to talk to communicate anymore. I was like, Oh, Jesus Christ,

12:01 of the brain that allow us to speak in a certain way. But it's transformed, meaning those nerve signals go in the form of electricity to the pharynx and larynx. But isn't the problem with the way language is structured in different languages? But because we're such good friends, we talk about this a lot. you know, a patient will come in, they'll do this, they'll record these areas and what,

15:00 They're really annoying. Yeah. I think the data show that it's a distortion of the regular map. Yes, she did. I don't follow pop culture carefully enough. Well, some of this stuff is learned. There's a kind of a map that expects the world, including language, to be a certain way. of, he is the world expert on speech and language and the neural transformations and

17:30 You know, in the 70s and 80s, and my actually scientific great grandparents, David Hubel and Torrenson Wiesel, won the Nobel Prize for showing there are critical periods, these periods of development after which the brain cannot change. unless it learns something, really important. It's making a soda straw view of the world. It's almost like being in a state of stress. And the best way to do that for a young person in adolescence, or maybe even older,

19:10 It's also the first time in human history people have typed with their thumbs. It does kind of create a kind of visceral, like, like nauseous. I can't trust those people. There's a thing to it. But then you said you don't trust people who talk like me. were trying to keep it together and then everyone else was like i want to be as smart as john You actually find out what you really sound like.

21:51 And there's many different parts of this that I wanted to talk to you about, particularly if I'm tired, my monkey brain can't put that combination together I'm like what do I do again left right You look at them. the way their mind is just wired, You see them fold and it's fascinating because it's not a physical thing like the the physical body is still capable of performing

24:55 We started with sleep. don't have to think about picking up water. I don't have to think about walking down the hall. you're thinking about, but space and time becomes untethered. It becomes very fluid. There's some chemical events too, but neural circuits so that during wakefulness, you can do duration path outcome, like learning a new martial dilate. When your pupils dilate, the optics of your world changes, and you are looking at the visual world, which is space, physical space, and you start slicing

28:29 out where do I place my hand? Where's my grip? How do I move my leverage? What am I going to do We also use particular patterns of breathing or respiration to bring people into states that are people do a cognitive task. So while they're in a very stressful environment, like with heights, Naps and just letting the mind drift can put us into sleep-like states. And those sleep-like

31:02 And I think being able to toggle back and forth between these states So what's remarkable about him is he has figured out how to tap into, mind into that particular state. Well, and the states that will allow people to go there often What is it about adults? Because I have my own theory, and this is just a martial arts-based theory. So they can just think about it.

33:47 And below that, what's happening is in childhood, the whole brain is literally more plastic because there's more space for the neurons to move around and make new connections. The first one is if you want to learn Now, the reason for that is that there's a neurochemical norepinephrine, to take us out of stillness and into movement. Like you can get it from cryo chambers.

36:31 So, yes. Neuroplasticity is triggered when urgency and focus combine. If you're a child, it'll drain your brain with acetylcholine. But as an adult, 30, 40, up to 80. Why is that? Yes. If you were going to try to improve your ability to get better at something, when would you So things like supplements and certain nutrition regimens can assist the process for sure. There's

39:11 And I was like, what is going on here? because he couldn't imagine not having his pipe for a certain amount of time. I don't smoke cigarettes, but I have. There are behavioral ways to access this, too. That's adrenaline. And having acetylcholine and noradrenaline up, in humans, which I think is important to distinguish between mouse and human where we can.

42:25 focus intensely, have an intense period of urgency, and then access the deepest rest you can it's all gas pedal. I mean, he eats well. But ultimately, to get better at anything, you got to get your reps in, whatever that is, neurosurgery or running. he's not a pleasant guy i love the guy i love hanging out with him he's great he's great to And my friend Michael Muller, he's got this whole thing where we could leave the cages.

45:32 give him something else and then we go through the whole thing and i'm explaining how we wire And he does it to keep his brain hard. Just to stay hard. and domestic and foreign special operations who are interested in this process for obvious reasons. different, but it still needs some degree of focus and they still need to get their sleep. Dopamine is responsible for that feeling of feeling great.

48:51 on just getting more of that thing. So dopamine is evoked through play. It's evoked through humor, And that neural energy is dopamine. Let's take the fight example where it's stressful and you're getting beaten down. All of a sudden you land one or you do something properly and the other guy starts to timber a little bit or there, I can't lift it. So I'm not talking about that kind of quitting. I'm talking about a long

51:05 the brain stops voluntary control over the muscular. Dopamine pushes back that level of noradrenaline neurology, but that David has somehow figured out that the leaning in process for him is the dopamine trigger. Like there is What's the difference between noradrenaline and norepinephrine? Oh, well, how confusing for everybody else. Well, and it gets worse because like you think about the autonomic nervous system and they're like sympathetic, parasympathetic.

54:19 And you really do feel like you're kind of, but you know you're not. And virtual reality can give you what the scientists call presence, the sense that you're really in that environment. well, we don't know because we don't put them in the water, but I just can't imagine. Well, For some people, that's gross. projecting a chessboard, that kind of thing.

56:33 interesting ways, but also body position. So we're tracking them 24 hours a day. It really is fascinating that these periods of rest So you want to focus as long as you can focus well and then probably a little longer, because there's also plasticity of the circuits that control focus. And you can start to buffer that through things like humor, through things like setting the

58:35 of that each day than you could ever do one long, long bout. And when that period ends, I think at least double that amount of time of deep rest if you want to It's important to say the words if you're, say, learning a motor skill or learning a movement – a language, excuse me. get more rest or would it be more beneficial to get rest but also spend a significant amount of time visualizing? We haven't looked at visualization specifically. The one thing that is very close to

1:01:15 you know, success that he's had with pain management, smoking cessation, these kinds hypnosis and deep hypnotic states are the place where neuroplasticity can be accelerated. For some of the people I'm doing work with in athletics and in the military community, So the standard eight-hour sleep, and then on top of that, some sort of meditation for complete declarative sentences it feels weird to me um that's just my own bias um oh they mean

1:04:02 Joe, you know, anytime someone's... Can you have a fake pronoun, like one of the new ones? Maybe not. And he was an actual hypnotist who would hypnotize people and get them to quit smoking and things along those lines. there's certain people that are just, they have nine-volt brains and you can trick them into doing anything. try and now close your eyelids. Uh, you're not very hypnotizable. How's that? Look up one more

1:06:50 of more attention and kind of higher levels of alertness When's it going to happen? Real emergency. The other state would And this fluttering of the eyelids is reflective of a peripheral nerve, believe it or not, that originates in the brainstem. your neural retinas that you use for seeing things around you are part of the central nervous system. at each other's pupils. Right. But when the hypnotist, I should say, looks at the pupils, they're saying, you know, the pupil size is a direct readout of how loose that hinge is.

1:09:55 but it's also the way that they focus their eyes. So, you know, the myth of the Cyclops, right? When we're relaxed, like we view a Wow. of time. And that's because outside events start to feel slower. This is why after a car crash, That's because their internal level of arousal is really, really high. Yeah, why neurotic people like Manhattan. I'm constantly trying to get to the other part of the seesaw.

1:13:45 to throw something out there that's wrong. I'd have to ask him there. There's a whole set of He's been on my podcast before. access very easily without a hypnotist. I mean, there are other ways to do it. There's a thing that people do, who's probably never really meditated. Well, meditation, you know, man, this is a guy who's probably never really meditated.

1:16:31 I mean, there's a lot of powerful tools in yoga, but it's the ashandas and all the stuff You're definitely not doing that. 100%. have this study looking at respiration and its impact, I think is a sign that the times are So what is it about breathing exercises that accentuate these aspects of autonomic system oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body and in the brain.

1:19:18 you do a double inhale and an extended exhale. So it's sort of like two inhales through the nose the ovulolive lungs. So this is in breath work. infection and disease. Everyone thinks stress kills your immune system. It's the opposite. The idea that your adrenals are just going to shrivel up into, you know. Like, where did that come from? I mean, we know that being in a chronic state of stress is bad physically.

1:22:32 called emotional contagion is to get people into a heightened state of alertness. I'm guessing, Interesting. This is all I think about. And we get there. contagious and everyone around you starts laughing more because there's more people around you And I encourage them to all stop doing it immediately. It's also that you're around a bunch of other people that are experiencing it together.

1:26:05 and you're all experiencing it together. are a break from the space-time rule Maybe it is to you or not. And it's hilarious I mean, this is why a lot of, and this isn't work that I'm involved in, but this is why a lot of the excitement about the therapeutic use of MDMA and things that increase dopamine are windows into modes of And then you'll hit me with something I had no idea.

1:28:43 Remember, they're like parking spots. and you can fill those up very quickly. You can maximize this to the point where things don't work anymore. Oh my God. But when I go down to Venice, which I love, and I love LA also. I mean, I don't go to the city anymore. tent compounds, you know, and it's, it's very unfortunate It's not good for safety. Yeah, medieval medieval diseases. They're bringing out diseases that haven't been around for fucking thousands of years

1:31:48 I'm like, this is crazy. in this bucket it's crazy like wow this is it's just is, it's just, I mean, I don't know. You go down towards the 4th Street, 5th Street. But bus after bus after tent after tent. But I see a lot of great things happening in the world. Yeah. So it tells me that, yes, people are challenged. She just kept grilling him on Fauci.

1:35:59 Because it is a novel coronavirus. experts. Now Richard Feynman was the one who was kind of the front runner and he's the Well, my dad's a physicist, so according to my dad that it makes it hard to do this duration the responsibility of science? At least I'm ethical in it that if I do make mistakes, around, you know, 5G is coming, 5G is coming. You know, there's something about that, that really

1:39:27 A spokesperson for science but there was this culture a voice for that besides Fauci. And I think he's doing the And the more stressful something, the more stressed a human or any animal gets, the easier it is to recruit them into some sort of delusional thinking. at least when I was growing up, I'm 44 years old, And so now it's all, as you said very aptly,

1:42:20 China is not doing this. Right, but you know what I'm saying? that he's the only person out there and the only voice, tools is because people are stressed. And for that person, whether or not they're wearing a mask and but also exercise, drink more water, take vitamins, But I think of all that as kind of the tide that comes in So just full disclosure,

1:45:49 badly obese. It's a real serious medical problem. I'm not even touching the psychology, Here. Well, I will say my physician friends tell me that one of the major threats to, you know, one of the major risk factors is obesity. Yeah, this is... It's an obesity-related thing. The problem is now. I think the other problem that's happened over the last 10 years, and we're

1:48:37 It has wonderful aspects, You know, you could take a walk, you can run, you can put the float tanks. And he said, I don't know. is essentially the – it's – we're – and he talked about this on Twitter and that's It's this weird thing that's most of the information that you're receiving. I think we are in an adolescent stage of this technological intervention, and this will lead to whatever Neuralink is going to be and whatever the successor to Neuralink is going to be. I think things are going to get way weirder, I think, but there's potential for a beneficial

1:52:23 but the boundaries between being able to access the thoughts of people is smaller. Absolutely. Their head is just filled with shit. I've managed to make great connections through social media, but we have to be very judicious the political landscape, the lots of landscapes, let's just say that. And I think that we need to I do, because that's what the human animal is really good at.

1:55:51 inner their exchanges it's just well this is kind of scary and i i um i sort of hesitant to just we were talking about earlier is tethered to that. And it very likely explains not just the human animal, but all animals ability to lean into challenge in order And they're not building anything out of that. learn a new skill. when Elon is saying you're going to be able to talk without using words, what I'm really hoping, and this sounds

1:59:28 machines that we put on our faces or whatever. But neuroplasticity is the way out of this, work through a hard tangle of a problem, interpersonally or academically, whatever problem, that can be done. It's just that we, I do think, especially in this country, That is what's really important, right? Yeah. The one that got pushed out is the loser. and this was taught in psychology classes, but not neuroscience classes.

2:02:42 the winner suddenly becomes a loser. is feeling the same level of stress and is moving forward just physically. And it's wild because you and anger. So frustration and anger were designed to get us to move forward adaptively. Now, I don't They get energy. I do think we need tools to buffer stress. I want to be clear about that. I don't want people stressed all the

2:05:29 That there's benefits to it, particularly if you're looking for growth and also if you're looking for stimulation and a sense of meaning. That's why we figured out the wheel. here and there's a problem. Like they're trying to win just like the mouse in that tube. When you And then what happened? People started leaving. They essentially turned it into a far worse version of the United States.

2:07:47 And actually, I hadn't thought about it. That's far and away a different way of looking at a problem and solving a problem. Well, this is a problem. the splitter is annoying everybody because you just want to go for coffee or you want to just break and the lumpers are done. But the splitter I certainly hope so. essentially is you, right? This is one of the problems that people have with ideas,

2:11:25 as kind of these vague, you know, like what are thoughts? You know, I have thoughts all the time, they are older than 25, has to be done by the person themselves. I can't change your mind unless So we are creating a bigger and bigger conceptual divide through the hijack of these neural mechanisms. I wonder if there's like a yearning for that because of the separation of, I mean, think

2:13:58 People that would never use graffiti or start smashing the windows of Starbucks might be so inclined because of the mob mentality to join right on in just to be accepted and be a part of this group and just to feel something, just to be excited by this gigantic movement. a lot of ways to access them. And I look at the, what's happening now. And I sort of go on sort of

2:15:28 way that was played out, of course, was not done equally among race, racial groups, etc. But a And we're going to take our tax dollars with us and then what's going on today in Portland. Like, what is going on here? conservative, but I remember a time growing up, you know, at least in my house, you know, like And I feel like in the last 20 years, we've seen some spoon benders. We've seen the explosion of

2:18:27 The same circuits are underlying all that. something out of this I think ultimately will probably be good and I think Imagine a world where all blue-eyed people were devils. I've done this experience and people look at you out of the corner of their eye And there isn't that option in there. I have a VR boxing game There's no replacement for real sparring.

2:21:16 But if you hit the thing, like if they could figure out a way to make a robot, you know, that was interacting with the VR program that understood where the footsteps of the VR. And I should be clear. They do the nod, they make eye contact. And then you go into a different set of experiences. It iceberg about what's possible. I think we really, what it tells me is that because of how stringently

2:23:33 hi to everybody. You can't. Yeah. You're just in the optic flow. You'd be like, hey, hi, I like that too. I always, what I liked about New York is I felt like it's, you had Italians You'll get cursed at in five different languages. Car cultures, it just you're in your own little environment you set up your own a bit as well. I grew up skateboarding and that was my sport. And what I loved about

2:26:22 Whoever can get their tail down, drop in and go. enjoy it. And I loved the community around that. I think more of that, please, for the next the way the brain functions, the more variables that you have in terms of when you see a person, beings and interactions we are in the best time ever and it's hard to say that because you know It's crazy. I mean, we become kind of autistic in our way of just feeling like our experience is the one experience and just being able to try and think about what it must be like over the last three months to not have any income, you know, to see your gym or your business open then shut again, at least here in California.

2:30:19 Do you have a retinal condition? very separate from the fear inducing thing. It's actually a very pleasant experience. So every cell in your eye has a different function, Completely blind mice were able to see again. it sounds terrible, but it's very straightforward. Okay. To inject something called CNTF, ciliary nootrophic factor. And the combination of

2:32:49 Get some prisoners that are really bad people, but they can't see that good. the ganglion cells, then you've got the photoreceptors, which take all this photon Maybe it was 12, but getting red light therapy, Yeah. Yeah, it feels good. And then you want to avoid light from like 11 PM to 4 AM. And people come after me, they're like the blue blockers.

2:35:30 having a dual effect. It's probably increasing mitochondria in the photoreceptors if the study They squirt it right in your eyeball? most active neurons and cells in your And this isn't human. How many injections do you have to have? Well, And so there's a reason why you have this tough sclera. David Sinclair. for him to get the point across. So David's not typically known for doing vision research,

2:39:09 anti-cancer gene. I think these work are still not published, but he's talked about them, So the study would probably run do whatever you want. But the fact of the matter and alive and healthy that settle down into your the one in my lab. And in two or three years, you're going to start seeing people who would always onto him, kick flips out, this kind of stuff.

2:41:40 He was having some issues with this. That's crazy. That's bonkers. Because talk about COVID and being indoors. who says, oh, you know what? There's someone sketchy over there to your right. You might But that's going to require new cells. It's like, the guy doesn't even have eyes. We just did three hours. It was awesome. What do you have? Beautiful.

2:44:24 Great.