Andrew Huberman on Focus, Energy, and Performing at Your Best

If you take yourself and your work really seriously, you need to organize your day that way.

Do the weight training protocol I talked about earlier. It will completely change your life. Figure out some way to make the sleep you can get the highest quality sleep.

Loads.

I think the social media thing might be the biggest one. I recently moved X and Instagram to a separate phone and then I keep that phone in a lock box. You can't actually get it out of it.

Um,

Thank you. Delighted to be here.

Well, it's been a wild ride. I didn't anticipate any of it. Uh, but I'm delighted that people are doing things for their health. And um, I don't know whether or not to accept, uh, by saying thank you or apologize that Marc stopped drinking. I know he enjoyed the occasional drink. I want...

Yeah. Well, I want to be very clear. The data say zero is better than any. Two per week is probably the upper limit for, uh, an adult non-alcoholic. And I don't think Marc is alcoholic. He could in theory have two drinks. But when I suggested, um, that he go zero, you know, 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, I realized like, whoa, 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, you know, the protocols come from other people's science. So in looking at the fields of science and health education, um, 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. I have to be careful too because I'm talking about other people's science often. Um, 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 want to listen or not. So, they just kind of stuck a microphone in front of me and here I am.

A single day. So I wake up, I use the bathroom like everybody else.

No.

No phones. Phone's out of the room while I sleep.

Interesting.

So I woke up, I'm groggy like everybody else. My mind starts going places that, you know what, 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, okay, 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, um, if for no other reason than 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've worked on the science of meditation, um, 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 — not 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, uh, more awareness of what is a meaningful thought or reaction and what isn't.

Um, okay. So I do that five minutes. But these days I find the buzzer goes off without me going, 'When is this over? When is this over?' Um, and then I get sunlight in my eyes. I'm absolutely religious about that. Sometimes I go up on my roof. Sometimes I go for a walk. Um,

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 it hasn't always been clear. If I'm going to exercise, I need caffeine. So, I'm not waiting even 30 minutes. I'm going to drink caffeine. So, I drink yerba mate, which is my preferred source of caffeine for a long time now. Uh, 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, uh, women I've trained with, uh, men, people of all ages. I've followed it for 35 years, and I think it's the most time-efficient and effective exercise program. Um, and it's really straightforward. Three days a week lifting weights, two to three days a week doing some sort of quote-unquote cardio. Uh, the cardio I'll just explain first. Um, something where you get your heart rate way, way up safely. So could be the rower, could be the Airdyne bike, the one with, you know, 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 of what I didn't do. A lot of people were 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. And, um, and I picked things that felt right to me. Cycling doesn't feel good to me. Running and the Airdyne bike do. So warm up for a minute, pedal easy in my case. Then go 20 seconds all-out effort, 10 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 VO2 max type stuff, and it's so fast. Okay,

So day one, this could fall on a Sunday or a Monday for someone. Doesn't matter. But the first day of the week I train my legs with resistance training.

Takes about an hour. That's the hardest work of the week. And if I were to only do one workout per week for the rest of my life, it would be that. Okay. For lots of reasons: largest musculature, systemic effects on hormones and metabolism, etc., etc. After leg day, I typically take the day completely off. I'll try to do some sauna-cold alternation on those days for recovery. Um, we can talk details there. Then depending on how well I've recovered, it might be just one day off, it might be two days off. Then I do some sort of push-pull thing for the torso. So, some chest presses, some shoulder presses, a pull-up or pull-down type thing if someone can't do pull-ups or pull-downs, and some sort of row. Maybe some stuff for the neck. If somebody has bad posture or they're finding this, oftentimes men will find that their shoulders will start getting wider and they're not training their neck. First of all, it looks kind of disproportionate, but then they'll start getting rotator cuff stuff. Training the neck is very important for stability of the entire, you know, shoulder girdle. So, um, and then I'll take a day off and then I'll do, um, some arms, calves, abs type, you know, smaller body parts. So, those are three separate weight training days.

All of them follow the same approach. And this is where I think people go badly wrong, but the data and what you're hearing online is starting to finally catch up. You could warm up for a couple minutes on the bike or some jumping jacks if you wanted, but I recommend doing one light set. So, 10 or 12 repetitions, very light, just to get blood flowing for the first movement. Then the second exercise, uh, or the second set, excuse me, is a moderate set. So, a set that you probably could do 10 repetitions, you do three.

Then you do two work sets spaced maybe three minutes, four minutes rest in between, which is long. But those work sets are all-out work sets in perfect form taken to momentary muscular failure. Two sets only. So, this might be a leg extension for the quads and then you would move to something else. Some sort of movement you can do safely, a squat, a front squat, a leg press. I mean, there's so many variations, right? Some compound movement and then the same thing for the hamstrings. The point here is that it's light set, medium set, many fewer reps than you could do even with the medium set. Then hard work for two sets. Write down what you did and either increase weight or increase repetitions every single workout. And I do this for every single thing I just described regardless of body part. It ends up being two exercises per body part, maybe three. So the total volume of work is very low. You leave these workouts, even leg day, feeling not completely rejuvenated, but you're not crushed. Your recovery is very fast. Your nervous system isn't as taxed, and you make progress at an amazing rate. Uh, a woman that I suggested this to who was a D1 athlete who played soccer for years came to me the other day and she's like, 'I can't believe this works so well. It's a third of the volume I was doing before.' Um, you can just put more into these individual sets. So, I could go on and on about this, but then somewhere in the week, I find a way to do the six-minute, uh, what turns out to be about six minutes of the, you know, the 20 seconds all-out, 10-second rest, and I find another day to do some sort of long hike. It used to be a jog. Nowadays, I like to, you know, throw on a weight vest or just a backpack and hike, um, where my heart rate's up and I'm breathing a bit. And if I'm really ambitious and I'm getting enough sleep every night, I might do also a 20 to 30-minute run in the middle of the week. But those three weight workouts will get most people what they want in terms of body recomposition, strength, and not just offsetting muscle loss and strength with age, but feeling much better posturally, mobility-wise. And of course, you can always stretch, but you can do that while you watch TV in the evening or something. So that's the kind of framework of that. I've been doing that for 35 years. Everyone I've given it to is positively shocked by the brevity, the results most importantly, and the fact that, you know, it's fun when you are looking forward to, you know, just a really 45 to 60 minutes of hard work. It's fun. It actually starts to become a pleasure to do.

All right. Um, after legs I, uh, ingested some starches and fruit.

Okay. After you weight train, if you train hard the way I described, you need to replenish glycogen. People say, 'Well, you didn't deplete all your glycogen.' Ingesting some starches after you train is a good idea.

I had a... I trained really hard, so I had, uh, and I love to eat. So, I had banana, blueberry, I had a couple scoops of whey protein, I had some oatmeal, and I had some sourdough toast with butter and salt on it because if something has butter on it, you got to salt it too, um, is my opinion. Um, and then a few hours later, maybe three hours later, I had a sort of standard meal, which would be my normal lunch, which would be, um, some piece of meat, either beef or chicken. Um, I'm not a big fan of fish, unless it's, you know, like Ahi tuna, and that's kind of hard to come by most days. Um, and some vegetable. I'm a big believer in fiber, but I want to make a point that I think doesn't get discussed enough, which is that many people get gastric distress from certain fibrous foods. It's very important, I think, that people find foods that are good for them, but that they feel good eating and after they eat. So, for instance, you're not going to see me eating broccoli. It makes me feel kind of not well. It doesn't digest well no matter how much I chew it, this and that. Um, so I'm not alone in this. Um, there's some foods like onions that generate histamines. Um, and so some people just don't feel good after eating certain foods. You have to experiment and see what works for you. And the only way to do that really is for a short while to start experimenting with single-ingredient foods, right? Just having some broccoli. You can put some olive oil or butter on it, right? Just seeing what works. If people are constantly eating sandwiches and stews and pizzas and soufflés and lasagnas, you don't know what works for you and what doesn't. So, a lot of developing really healthy eating habits with foods that you love and having a lot of choices is to figure out what you can eat and feel really good eating after you eat as well.

I had beef.

I had just some grilled steak. I had, uh, in my case, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. And I had some rice as well.

Um, well, and I'm a big fan of olive oil, so I had some olive oil. Um, no. I don't tend to like sweets that much. If I have sweets, it's generally 100% chocolate, which is really boring and kind of nerdy, but you develop a taste for it. Um, I sort of lost my appetite for sweets. I have not lost my appetite for fats. So, to me, a treat is like a chunk of really, really good Parmesan cheese.