Dr. Andrew Huberman, a Phd of Neuroscience and Professor at Stanford, started his own podcast video lecture series last year (he also has a great Instagram). This post covers the first 8 podcasts, roughly 12 hours of lectures, into bullet points of actionable learnings. I hope you find it helpful:
- Sunlight sets our circadian rhythm, but only specific types of light. The type of light that sets our circadian rhythm is only available around sunrise and sunset. Between roughly 9:30am to a few hours before sunset, the light we need to set our circadian rhythm is unavailable. This is where late risers fall into a rhythm of a misaligned schedule, often leading to a cascading effect of negative health consequences. So, take a sunrise and sunset walk!
- Our phones and overhead lights are a source of light at night, potentially disturbing our circadian rhythm. Rule of thumb: avoid any source of light between 11pm and 4am. If you're using lights after sunset, floor lighting is optimal. Overhead lights mimic the location of the sun (above us!)
- The earlier you get light, the more you phase advance (wake up earlier the next day) and the later you get light at night the more you phase delay (wake up later the next day).
- Schedule shifts are adapted about an hour at a time, keep this in mind when adapting to jet lag and consider shifting your schedule before you travel if you are moving multiple timezones to reduce disruption.
- It’s very hard to control the mind with the mind. Use the body to control the mind, such as breathing protocols and NSDR protocols. See bullets #6, #7, and #9 for specific tools.
- Sleep anxiety is a real thing — sometimes, we just don’t sleep well. It’s not the end of the world: get up, avoid bright overhead lights, read a book or do a non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) session to fall back asleep.
- 20–30 minute naps are optimal as a refresher, but if you’re not a nap person, try NSDR protocols like Yoga Nidra or Hypnosis from Reverie Health. These protocols help recover sleep, refresh you, and improve learning. You’ll finish sessions with lasers in your eyes, ready to focus.
- What you eat dictates how you feel after the meal. Eating too much will result in a food coma, regardless of what you eat. Rules that work well for me: low carb or carb free lunch, whatever-you-want for dinner.
- Physiological sigh offsets real-time stressors. Two inhales through the nose followed by a long exhale from the mouth. Try it next time you’re in a stressful situation.
- The amount of sleep and the consistency of it is more important than the total hours of sleep, assuming you’re getting the minimum necessary for you to function. A good rule is to have set hours when you get into bed and when you get out of bed.
- Take a hot shower at night and it will help you sleep better. The hot shower leads to a cooling of body temperature, which is needed for you to fall asleep and have a good night’s rest. A cold shower gives you increased alertness from the release of epinephrine (and because it's cold!) It also builds stress tolerance.
- Wait two hours before having caffeine. This prevents the caffeine crash. We have a natural mechanism that suppresses adenosine, which induces sleepiness. By introducing caffeine before this mechanism has a chance to work, our body begins to depend on the adenosine from the caffeine, creating a dependency cycle.
- Optimal learning states occur when our bodies experiences anxiety and low level stress. That’s how our body and brain recognizes there’s something to take note of and “learn”. You can put yourself in this type of state by throwing your body off balance, i.e. attempting to balance on one foot with your eyes closed for 10 seconds.
- Another way to put yourself in this “optimal learning state” is pushing into areas of learning that make you a little uncomfortable. Train yourself to go deeper when you feel some discomfort in your learning because this is where growth happens. This will require finding a happy medium: if something is too easy, we won’t learn and if something is far too hard for us to comprehend, then we’ll likely give up entirely.
- There are only two 90 minute deep focus and work sessions in a day (maybe 3 absolute max). Are you using them and are you using them wisely?
If you want deeper dives, I wrote a few long form posts summarizing learnings into four separate posts: part 1, part 2, and I will eventually get part 3 and part 4.