How to Change Your Brain With Dr. Andrew Huberman (+ Utkarsh!)

For people that want to change their brain, the power of focus is really the entry point—and the ability to access deep rest and sleep. Most people don't realize this, but neuroplasticity is triggered by intense focus, but neuroplasticity occurs during deep sleep and rest.

When it comes to wanting to shift the way that you function—to get better, or to perform better, or to show up better, or to move away from things like addictive behaviors; it's absolutely foolish for any of us—me included—to think that we can do that by changing our thoughts first. Its behavior first; thoughts, feelings, and perceptions follow.

Self-generated optic flow—by walking, running, or cycling—shifts the brain into a state of relaxation that's not seen when you're stationary ... When you move through a space and your active, there's a natural calming of the brain circuits involved in threat and threat detection.

As a culture, we're experiencing an extraordinary poverty of attention and focus. We're so distracted by our devices. We're more anxious and stressed and depressed than we ever have been before. This is not going in a good direction.

Beliefs and information that support our prior beliefs also increase the activity of these reward systems. The more I see stuff that verifies what I already think or feel—that 'they are bad and they are good' or that 'we are good and they are bad,' the more dopamine and adrenaline is released into my system, which we now know from our discussion a few minutes ago changes the way I view the world ... It means that I'm going to see certain things and not see others.

Being able to hear and listen hinges on the ability to be calm. So therefore, the ability to be calm is crucial to hearing and listening, and hearing and listening is crucial to our advancement as individuals and as groups.

Plasticity in the in the adult brain at any age can be as robust as it is in childhood as fast and as traumatic provided the focus is there and it's all contingent on this acetylcholine molecule coming from nucleus.

The early stages of hard work and focus are going to feel like agitation, stress, and confusion because that's the norepinephrine and adrenaline system kicking in.

Physical space around you and your time perception are absolutely linked. When our focus is very narrow, time starts to feel thin-sliced ... It's not that it's going fast or slow; it's that you're perceiving more events per unit of time.

Negative thoughts, traumatic thoughts, bad thoughts—trying to suppress those is futile. If there's one message I can send people, it's just don't even work at that. But work at the process of introducing thoughts—almost like you would introduce actions.

I pull a lot of all nighters, and I still do, unfortunately, in my career, writing grants and so forth. I have this rule that I learned about 15 years ago, which is I don't trust any of my thinking that occurs between 3 AM and 7 AM if I've been up all night. I just don't trust it because I start to think the world's falling apart. I start thinking the word 'the' is misspelled. I really know I'm sleep-deprived when words like 'the' look misspelled.

As a society, we have become literally biochemically addicted to many things, including entrenched all-or-nothing thinking and myopic perceptions of life. Simply put, emotions cloud our judgment.

The human animal is amazing at making plans and modifying its brain if it wants to. But the human brain and the human animal are also dreadfully bad at doing what's best for us ... Our reward systems are not designed for things that are just good for us; they're designed for things that optimize the progression of our species. They'll grab onto and ratchet into any behavior that makes us feel good, so the human brain is really not optimized for making the best choices.