Welcome to the huberman live podcast where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman. And I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of
medicine. Today is an ask me, anything or am
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Without further Ado, let's get to answering your questions. And as always, I will strive to be as accurate as possible as
thorough as possible. And yet, as concise as
possible, our first question is about motivation in particular,
Or how to maintain motivation over long periods of time. This is a question asked by Martin zhukov. He wrote I alternate between periods of two different states that vary from a few weeks to a couple of months, I have extremely high motivation in one state
where I can do multiple things, side projects making music as well as my main
things or really low motivational states where I can barely do anything and
I only look for short-term entertainment. I'm guessing short-term entertainment comes in the form of
Video games, social media, and just kind of doing generally unproductive things as we all do from time to time,
he goes on to write, what would be the best set of protocols to normalize
those extremes into a more stable and consistent State? Well, first off this is an excellent
question. I say that because it's a question that I
hear a lot and I think that many people
are interested in knowing how motivated
they ought to feel and I think
a lot of people also feel a lot
less motivated than they would like now
hear the question.
Specifically about how to not go from these extremes of
days or weeks of high motivation to days or weeks of low motivation.
But before we do that, we need to take a step back and acknowledge that just as with
anxiety or happiness, or sadness.
We as human beings don't have an
objective window into how other people experience motivation. In fact, most of
the time we don't even realize how we experience
motivation, we just know whether or not we feel a high
barrier or a low barrier to
leaning into
Work in getting things done. In fact, I have a good friend who did many years in the Special Operations community and then went on to the finance community. And then now works in Health
and Wellness Community, he has a great and a mental
image for all of us to adopt it. Certainly one that I've adopted which is
for anything in our life. We can either be back on our heels flat footed or forward Center of mass back in our heels, meaning really struggling, flat-footed meaning, and we're doing okay, or forward Center of mass. Meaning that we we feel as if we're really tackling things and that
That we are in control of our
environment or at least to some degree. So, I
place that imagery in your mind because I'll return to it a little bit later in the
question when we get into some of the underlying circuitry and tools in the meantime
I want to remind everybody, what the
basis of motivation is. There are
many neurochemicals in
neural circuits involved in what we call motivation. But a
central theme of the Neuroscience
of motivation.
Is that the neuromodulator
dopamine is involved. Now,
dopamine does other things besides
Control motivation, impacting controls light adaptation in the retina. That is
your eye. It controls a number of different things. In terms of movement, it controls all sorts of things, but it is strongly related
to the motivation. Pathways, how do we know that? Well, there are experiments on animals and humans, which show that even in the absence of dopamine or in the presence of very low dopamine. I should say people and animals can
still experience pleasure. However, when dopamine levels are too low,
Whoa, people's ability to pursue pleasure
or their willingness to pursue pleasure in
particular, their willingness to
undergo effort to pursue pleasure or any goal of any kind. Not just pleasure,
any goal of any kind is strongly
regulated by the levels of dopamine. So if dopamine levels are too low, people simply will not put in the effort to obtain or reach a goal.
If dopamine levels are adequately high, they
will put in that effort and if dopamine levels go
to
You actually see something that is
pathologic, which is that people consider
every goal a
reasonable goal. This is often seen in the manic phase of a manic bipolar person. So for instance, somebody with
manic, bipolar who's in the manic episode dopamine levels are very, very high and they will think every idea is a great idea, and they will have tons of energy to
do that so much so that they're not sleeping. So obviously, that's not what we want,
what we want. And what the question asker Martin
is asking about is how to keep dopamine
levels in.
A range that allow us to lean into effort but that we don't
expend our ability to stay motivated and we can really Trace that back to a biochemical
/ neural circuit statement which is we really want to control our
output of dopamine
and the Baseline levels
of dopamine from which that output is taken.
In other words, we want to think about dopamine as a reservoir or residing in a reservoir that Reservoir can be depleted. So,
it's
Well, it's depletable but it's renewable as well. And one of the best analogies that I've ever heard was by a previous guest on the
human Lab podcast. Dr. Kyle Gillette who is a medical doctor, obesity specialist expert in hormones. We did a episode on
optimizing hormones and
males with dr. Cal Gillette, you can find that at huberman live.com or anywhere, you can find
podcasts doctor.
Gillette offered an analogy of the Baseline levels of dopamine as a wave pool.
And I really
like this. So if you think about this pool full of dopamine and here, we're just talking about the
dopamine that resides in the circuits of the brain that control motivation,
but that pool of dopamine, you can imagine is just sitting there not doing much of anything
while you're asleep. In fact, while you're sleeping your replenishing, those dopamine levels. I'll tell you another tool in a moment to replenish those dopamine levels.
But if you were to pursue a goal, really, really go forward Center of mass for many, many hours or many, many
days in some cases
and pursue a goal or multiple goals.
Really driven to do a ton. What you're effectively doing is generating waves in
that wave pool.
And if those waves are too big, well then, the waves can't keep repeating themselves. So, think about the wave as the motivation and the depth of the pool as the
reservoir of dopamine. And if
those waves are too big too much excitement, too much motivation, too much Center of mass for a given period of time than the
water. In this wave, pool sloshes out of the wave pool, lowering the
reservoir, and then there are really three ways.
That you can
replenish that Reservoir and
you want to maintain
or replenish that Reservoir if it's been depleted. How do you do that? Well,
first of all, quality sleep. So, when I say
quality, I mean where you're getting enough slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. So, for some people six hours for some people, eight hours, some people might even need a little bit more, a little bit less. We have episodes the perfect, your sleep episode of the master sleep episode. We have a tool kit for sleep. All available at zero cost to human lab.com, links Etc. So check those out for getting your sleep,
right? But
Is really when you replenish that reservoir of
dopamine. So you cannot ignore sleep. I'll come back to this in a moment,
the second science supported tool, that's really been shown to replenish dopamine in particular, dopamine within the pathways that regulate motivation is a practice. I've talked about before on the
podcast called non sleep, deep breath sometimes called Yoga Nidra. Although, Yoga Nidra is a little bit
different, there are two studies out of Denmark that have explored Yoga Nidra, in the context of dopamine, the first one,
Simply involved having people do a Yoga Nidra practice. Again, this doesn't involve any movement but
involves people potentially you
doing anywhere from 30 to 60 Minutes. Although, there are now data showing that as short
as 10 minutes of a non sleep, deep breast AKA Yoga, Nidra protocol leads
to traumatic, really dramatic
increases in striatal, dopamine reserves. So it essentially is
replenishing. The
dopamine Reserve
pool. This is why I'm such a fan of using
NSD Rak, Yoga Nidra, at
least once a day, and
Especially under times when you're
engaging in a lot of high
output. And when I say especially at times, when you're engaging a lot of high output, this is a mistake. Many people
make they
push, push push, push push. They're in pursuit of a goal. Then they hit that point where they're exhausted, then they start doing all the dopamine Reserve pool replenishing tools, such as
Yoga Nidra are and SDR.
The real key is to always tap off
that or refill that Reservoir once a day.
Before it's completely
depleted. Now this gets into some of the biochemistry of dopamine and the relevant circuits but it takes a lot longer to restore the dopamine
Reservoir. Think of it, still is a wave pool but that reservoir
from a place of complete depletion than it does of partial depletion. So there's an asymmetry in the way this is done. So it's not as if you know you drink a glass of water, you fill the glass of water at a certain
rate and it fills up to a certain level and the rate is constant think about it
as once the level of
Dopamine in your reserve is depleted past a certain point, it takes a
lot more effort, much more sleep. Much
more NSD are things of that sort to replenish that Reservoir.
Now often times what people will do, when they start feeling less motivation is they will start relying on things like Adderall Ritalin,
some cases illegal substances that can increase. Dopamine, you know what those are, please don't ever leaned to those, they are extremely dangerous, they really are because of their
Ability to potently release dopamine. And guess what deplete that Reservoir even further.
We've talked about some supplements on the podcast that can replenish dopamine l-tyrosine in particular, mucuna pruriens is actually
99% l-dopa, the precursor to
dopamine. I don't necessarily recommend mucuna, pruriens it tends to make people very dopaminergic drive drive, drive, drive
motivated, and then crash again. Depleting, that pool
l-tyrosine is a little bit milder, but I really encourage people to lean first on the
Real tools, such as NST R.
And by the way there's ansd, our script totally zero
cost that you can find by putting my name and NST R into YouTube. That one works quite well. If you're looking for a short and Str, there's some other NSD ours, you can simply look on the internet or YouTube and just put an SDR and you'll find an Str or if you prefer to do
the more classic Yoga
Nidra type approach. There are a lot of different Yoga Nidra options to choose from on
YouTube. Many people think
NSD are or Yoga Nidra are simply meditation.
With a body scan that's not true.
Meditation is a focus exercise
and most meditations are focused exercise. NSD are restores energy through the dopamine system and newer data are starting to show that it can actually recover lost sleep. So if you're not sleeping enough,
but to return to NSD Rak Yoga, Nidra is a practice. Yes, it's been shown
in laboratory studies in humans. By the way, to restore dopamine levels, there's another
study lesser-known.
From that same group that was published in 2011 which is entitled dopaminergic, stimulation, enhances confidence and accuracy and seeing rapidly presented words. This was a cognitive task,
they explored Yoga Nidra. A knsd are
in the context of increasing striatal dopamine. They already knew that
it did that. So, that's great. They confirm that
result. But what they also found is that doing an SDR. Could restore confidence in
cognitive ability and performance in these cognitive.
- task. Okay? So this is a really
powerful zero cost
tool for re-upping or replenishing that dopamine Reserve. Yeah, so this is something to
do every day
especially when you're not feeling depleted. So the question again was about
how to make sure that you don't go through these cycles of
extreme motivation and then lesser motivation well, get your sleep right? I would say 80% or more of the nights of your life, hopefully, the nights that it's not
good for good reasons that you're enjoying yourself, but hey, life happens.
So, you know, 100% of the time, it's just not reasonable to expect of yourself.
Do NSD are once a day for either 10
minutes. If you have the time to do 20, 30 minutes or an hour, you will see even more positive effects. It has been shown in these research studies to replenish dopamine levels of confidence, cognitive ability,
Etc, and
sense of motivation and I said, there were three tools and
the third tool that really can allow you to keep the dopamine AK motivation. Circuitry tuned up properly is to really start paying attention to Peaks and dopamine.
Min and be very careful about layering in too many things that can stimulate the dopamine system. I talked about this quite a bit in the episode that we did
on ADHD and building and maintaining Focus.
There are many things out
there nowadays that will deplete the dopamine
system for instance. And by the way, none of what I'm about to list is
necessarily bad. I actually use some of these
things for instance, caffeine will increase, dopamine receptors that will allow, whatever dopamine is,
Able to be more potent. Okay, so caffeine is great for some people. Less good for people with anxiety. Don't drink it too late in the day because it
interfere with your sleep and so on and so forth.
But many people will combine caffeine with music that they particularly like music's great. Music can stimulate dopamine release. We know this. It can enhance motivation especially if it's kind of music that really puts
you in the groove. For the particular type of work, you're going to do for me. I like to listen to either
loud fast music or Glenn Gould classical piano. So one or the other I know what's right for me.
Me for a given time you'll
know what's right for you for a given time in your preferences. But what will happen is people will
start consuming caffeine at higher and higher levels.
Again, caffeine isn't necessarily bad but they'll start doing that and they'll start layering it in or stacking
very potent music potent for them.
Plus things like
l-tyrosine again. None of these things are terrible on their
own. In fact, they can be very beneficial
sometimes they'll start taking mucuna purine sometimes they'll start relying on things like Adderall, Ritalin and pretty soon. What's happening is they're getting these big waves in that dopamine wave pool.
Big Peaks and within a few days or maybe even within a
few hours their depleted and they're at that low
and then as dr. Anna Lemke,
who was a guest on the podcast talked about in terms of addiction, but also in her wonderful book, dopamine Nation. What happens is after those big piece in dopamine? The reservoir the Baseline in dopamine drops below its initial level. So it's as if the reservoir got deeper and it's emptier, and it takes much much longer to fill. Okay, so
to be quite specific, what
I'm recommending is
get your sleep right? Ideally every night of your life but for as many nights that of your life as possible, that's clearly replenishing dopamine and sense of motivation. Do all the things associated with that morning, sunlight, lack of artificial light, at certain hours of the night, etcetera. All of that's in the toolkit for sleep. In other episodes, I mentioned before,
have a practice that is research
supported to
replenish dopamine and incorporate that practice. Anytime of day again, SDR can be done. Morning, afternoon, or evening, or middle.
Night, if you wake up and you need to get back to sleep, it can be very beneficial for
that but do it as a consistent practice. So that dopamine Reservoir remains tapped off. And as a third point, please be wary of, or at least aware of these Peaks and dopamine in the fact that layering in a lot of things that stimulate dopamine. Well, that can be wonderful for your wedding birth of a new child. Going to a sports event, with a bunch of friends, celebrating a big anniversary. Yes, please do
celebrate and enjoy the wonderful.
Hence of life
but please also understand and expect there will be a lawless sort of postpartum low. Maybe
not full-blown depression, that follows
that unless you incorporate some
tools and practices to replenish that dopamine does that mean you should never combine caffeine l-tyrosine music and a workout in time with
friends? No, absolutely not. But don't expect to do
that and then go do an
intense bout of work and then get up the next morning and do it all over again for more than a few days before you find yourself, pretty depleted, okay? So rather than give you a specific
Schedule of, you know, do seven days of this, in four days of this. What I encourage you to do is for, at least five days a week. Maybe, give yourself some time off on the weekends. Maybe not, but it for at
least five days a week, get into a consistent routine that is, I should say,
neurobiologically, consistent as well with how the dopamine AKA circuits that control motivation work and I
assure you that you will find yourself in a more regular groove of focus and attention and alertness and motivation when you need to and provided you're doing all.
The things I described and hopefully paying
attention to other things like nutrition and social connection to, of course,
you'll find a much more even
pattern of motivation over
time. One Last Thing Before I conclude the answer to
this question. When I was in graduate school, I got some wonderful advice from an excellent neurologist. His name is Robert Knight. He's to be at University of California Berkeley. I think he's retired now but is still active in the scientific community and I asked him what he was doing that weekend. I don't know why this came up
And I'm going fishing. I like kind of, you know, mindless Recreation. I said, it's great, you know, fishings fauna and I'm not particularly into fishing myself, but I've done a few times and I enjoy it
and he said you know the most important thing for a science or medicine career or any demanding career
I said what I was all ears, a super, you know, super hungry to get in the mix and you do research and publish papers and he said,
figure out how many
hours a day you can do real work, consistently
that means five days a week for some people six or seven.
But five days a
week, I think, for most people, is going to be a bit healthier overall for your social life and family, Etc, and he said, figure
that out and know that that number is what you should apply over and over and over
again. But update that number about every four or five years and I said, okay, so does that mean that
over time, I'm working more and more or less and
less and he said, ah, here's the deal. As
you get better at your profession, you will find that
you can do more
potent work, more directed work in a
Shorter amount of time, but that does not mean that you can continue to
expand the amount of time that you're doing Focus work,
in fact, the opposite. So this fall is a sort of General principle. That's also
present in resistance training weight lifting, right? The analogy there, is
that people always imagine that as you get better and better at resistance training, you should do more and more volume, just keep adding volume and the other some evidence to support that more
volume for hypertrophy as opposed to less etcetera, we've done episodes on this. However, there's a different school of
thought that
It's exceedingly well and it runs in the exact opposite direction which is as you get better at controlling muscular contractions or let's say for in an endurance sport, as you get better at regulating, your stride and breathing and all those
things, you actually
can do, more quote, unquote, adaptation stimulating damaged during a given training session.
So you want to train less, not more over time, because beginners, don't actually have the ability to get much done in a lot of time or a short period of time. Whereas X,
Birds can come in there and really nail it. So I think that advice that Robert Knight was really key and it's something that I followed throughout my career. So it one period
of my life. I won't mention the hours that I worked in graduate school. They were pretty insane. To be honest, I'd family members get a little concerned, actually lived in the laboratory, even as a junior Professor.
I don't suggest people do that, by the way, but I enjoyed it at the time and the key thing is that you figure out what you can do,
consistently and still maintain mental health, and physical health, that's key as well and do that. And
Then
every couple of years or so update that typically, by reducing the total amount of
time that you're doing, that high potency
work. I think that combined with the other tools that I described before for generating ongoing dopaminergic circuits, keeping that Reservoir full ought to give you consistent motivation. Again, it's an art and a practice and a science, so don't expect to get it. Perfect the first time around, but I wish you
all luck and I'm certain that these tools work.
Thank you for joining for the beginning of this. Ask me anything
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