The Bossticks - Andrew Huberman Pt. 2 On Optimal Supplements, Fitness Routines, Cold/Hot Therapy, Biohacks, & Hormone Levels

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

#458: Today is the second part of a two part episode this week with Andrew Huberman. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and tenured Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. On part 2 we discuss optimal supplementation, workout routines, hormone levels, hot/cold therapy protocols, and biohacking tools we can use.  Dr. Andrew Huberman is hosting two live events this May. The first is in Seattle, WA on May 17, and the second is in Portland, OR on May 18. The events will include a discussion on "The Brain Body Contract" along with a live Q&A on all things human health & performance. It's almost sold out so be sure to visit https://hubermanlab.com/tour to get

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Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Unless people have amazing abilities of recovery, training very hard with weights for more than 60 minutes is going to increase cortisol, reduce other anabolic hormones like to. testosterone and estrogen and DHEA and things of that sort. So it's really warm up and hit it hard in the weight room and then get out. Just really, really get out.

Don't two-hour workouts. Maybe fine if people are anabolic assisted, you know, taking TRT at high levels or something I recommend. We could talk about hormone therapies. But get in, get the work done and get out. 50 minutes, 5-0 is probably even better. And then zone 2 cardio on the off days or maybe even on the weight training days. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show.

for those of you that are tuning in for the first time this week or even the first time ever in general, I highly recommend right now that you actually pause this episode and go back to the episode right before this one. That's episode 457. We don't typically do this, but in this case, this is actually part two of a two-part conversation that takes place with Dr. Andrew Huberman. We did part one this Monday where we covered a lot of ground. And it's definitely relevant to go back to part one because there's a ton of references in this episode and what we talked about in the first. And this was done in a single session of recording. So we just broke it up into two parts because it was so long that we wanted to make sure that it was digestible for everybody.

So definitely go back and check out part one. That's episode 457 if you haven't done so. If you have, here's part two, continuing the conversation with Dr. Andrew Huberman. To remind everyone, Andrew Huberman, PhD is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function, and neuroplasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behavior, skills, and cognitive functioning. He has a phenomenal podcast called The Huberman Lab that Lauren and I are both regular listeners too. I highly recommend you check it out. It's a wealth of knowledge on there. He does a

great job presenting information that's science-back, digestible, applicable to literally everyone if you're a human being. So be sure to check that out. So as I said, this is part two of a two-part conversation. In part one, we covered sleep, we covered hormones, we covered stress, anxiety, and a lot more we covered all sorts of stuff, the visual system. And on this, This episode, we're covering a lot more. We're going to talk about workouts, the optimal types of workouts, when, how long, how much, what cadence. We're going to talk about supplementation, the proper supplements, what to use, what to avoid.

We're going to talk about diet. We're going to talk about boosting the immune system. We're going to talk about testosterone, estrogen levels. We're also going to cover questions around biohacking that include different types of tools, heat exposure, cold exposure, saunas, cold baths, ice plunges, all of that stuff. We're also going to discuss sexual reproduction and overall sexual health. So again, if you're a human being, this is applicable to you. There's so much information in these two episodes. Before we jump in, and I mentioned this last time, but I want to mention it again for our friend. Andrew Huberman is hosting two live events this May. The first is in Seattle, Washington on May 17th, and the second is in Portland, Oregon on May 18th. The events will include a discussion on the brain body contract along with a Q&A on all things human health and performance. It's almost sold out to be sure to check it out. Go visit Hubermanlab.com.com to get your tickets today. If you're in the area or you want to travel, I'm sure it will be phenomenal. With that, Andrew Huberman, welcome back to the show again.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. So there are a couple ways to do this. One is a uncomfortably cold shower every day or cold ice bat. I don't think ice baths are a good idea for pregnant women. I'm doing my cold shower. Cold shower should be fine. Okay. Yeah. Cold shower should be fine.

I wouldn't do sauna, right? There's a reason that warning is there. I just stare at the sauna outside of it. Yeah. I would avoid kind of extremes of temperature and extremes of anything when pregnant. What about Wim Hof Breath? I've been doing that.

Now you're telling me, eh. I wouldn't do it while pregnant. Huh. I would recommend because it causes some pretty dramatic shifts in the blood, oxygenation, carbon dioxide ratios. I doubt I've been doing it every single day. I doubt you've done any damage. Fetuses are pretty resilient,

but I wouldn't do that, right? Because one of the major effects of alcohol is hypoxia, and we know that alcohol isn't great for fetuses. So, but I don't want to alarm you. but I would stop for now. Good advice. You can look forward to it after giving birth. So the way to raise your level of grit, resilience, and mental toughness

is to deliberately induce adrenaline and then learn to stay calm in that state, mentally calm while your body is very agitated. The best way to do that is a cold shower, ice bath, or you can do what's called cyclic hyperventilation breathing. My lab has worked on this. It looks a lot like Wimhoff breathing. It also looks a lot like tumo breathing, but cyclic hyperventilation involves taking a big deep inhale

through the nose, which will raise your heart rate. So, and then a brief exhale through the mouth, just dump a little bit of air. Then again, don't do too many of these, you're pregnant. Oh. So you do that for 25, 30 breaths. You will feel very agitated. Your heart rate will go up.

You'll feel warm. That's adrenaline. Then what you do is you exhale all your air, and you sit calmly for 15,000. to 30 seconds, and then you repeat. And you do that for two or three rounds of 25 to 30 breaths of the sort I just described, exhale and hold. And then on the last round, if you do two or three rounds, as long as you don't have glaucoma or a heart condition, you can take a big deep breath and hold.

And what you'll notice is you can hold your breath a long time because you've removed a lot of carbon dioxide, which is the stimulus to breathe. And when you do that, you can sit very calmly, but your system is still flooded with adrenaline. If you do that one, three, or seven times per week as a practice, what you'll find is that when you look at that text message or your partner says something really aggravating, you will still experience the release of adrenaline stress associated with that. But it will be a familiar place. Kind of like if you've grown up in the Bay Area, you get used to driving in fog in San Francisco. Or if you are, you get used to at earthquakes. I mean, I've been through so many

earthquakes. Now when an earthquake hits, I go, oh, cool. You know what to do. You move to a spot where you're going to be safer, you kind of know how to monitor how intense it is. You look up the epicenter. I've never been in a tornado. But if I saw that twister coming at me, I wouldn't know exactly what to do. So this is a practice. That's what happened here when that big freeze happened. People didn't know what to do. People didn't know what to do. I mean, granted, we didn't have a lot of infrastructure out here in Texas, but it was exactly what you're saying. If you saw this big freeze happen in a place like Chicago or somewhere else that deals with this all time, whatever. I think that's why a lot of the country is like, yeah, no big

deal. But here, people hadn't seen it, no infrastructure, host of problems, right? Like people, I think that was what contributed to a lot of the panic. I want you to practice this breath, he's saying. So when I piss you off, you're more calm. So I'm better now. Okay, so. Well, you know, I just think in general, the human race, all of us would do much better to be able to do what we're talking about is autonomic self-regulation. The ability to stay calm in your mind, even if your body experiences a big shot of adrenaline is just an incredibly potent tool for everything. I mean, I've been in a lot of complex driving situations.

So the other day, we were driving, and I was on the headset, but on the phone with my mother, because I needed to call her before we traveled, and a car pulled in front of us. My girlfriend screamed and stuff, and I've just kind of like, I've been in a lot of situations like that.

I'm not like a stunt driver or anything of that sorting. I went around, honked and did the thing. And then later she was surprised, I said, yeah, I think a lot of that is just because I'm doing a lot of ice bath. I'm doing a lot of this breathing. And so it didn't feel foreign to suddenly have this heightened sense of alertness. And so when you're in the cold shower, ice bath or cold water immersion or when you're doing this breathing, it's very important that you realize that your body will feel agitated,

but that you can still anchor your thoughts. There's a reason why they use cold water exposure to screen for special forces. I want to talk about this kind of in detail. And I was going to save it towards the end, but it may be more timely. here now, cold and hot exposure. Sure. And in addition to that, maybe, like, I think within that workouts and stressors, because I believe in, I'm not going to have the scientific explanation, that many people have more trouble now regulating stress and anxiety because we put ourselves in too many comfortable

situations. And, you know, it seems like that's what we're all seeking, right, is comfort, right? I want to get the most comfortable home, the most comfortable bed, the most comfortable job, the most comfortable relationship. And then when we were met with discomfort, we can't handle it. So maybe we can start with cold and heat exposure and then talk about maybe some workouts that you see to benefit both obviously body, mind, mood. But let's start with cold. I'm going to tell you my protocol that I learned from you. You tell me if I'm doing it wrong. 11 minutes per week is what I shoot for. Total. Total. I do it Tuesday, Thursday, and either Saturday or Sunday. I'm fortunate enough now we have a cold plunge in our house. I think we

have the same one that's literally called the cold plunge yeah they make a good one and then the forge makes a good one yep there is a cost to those sure they're not a podcast sponsor for us but they they did donate one and a nice bath would work just fine too yep i was for me it's more cost of it because i was going to a place and i was like by the time i would have to take the time and pay out of it not have to go anywhere and also to be able to get into your own shower yeah it's much easier yeah absolutely but before we had that when we were living in l.a we had just we were just doing cold shower so from a cold protocol that's what i do and i typically do three rounds and try to get to like around four minutes per time. And I know a lot of people go and they try

to sit in extreme cold for three minutes. I think after listening to you, I was like, okay, if I can do 11 minutes spread over three days or in the week. That's good. Okay. That's very good in fact. Okay. And then what I do with the sauna now and again, same situation, fortunate to just got one. I'm doing 57 minutes and I'm breaking that again Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. And I typically like call it 20 minutes per session. Do you do it with the cold? So yeah, so this is what I was going to ask you. because I think I just highlighted your protocols and your times per week. But what I had a question of, and I think a lot of the questions that came through was, my protocol is this.

I typically start with the cold and I do around, and then I get out and walk around, just let the air dry. And then I go back into the cold for like calling them a two. And then I go into the sauna for like call it 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. Great. Come out, take a little break, walk. And then I go back into the sauna to finish. and then I end with a cold

and then just walk around and let the air drive me. Is that? That's a great protocol. So it's not bad going back and forth. No, it's terrific. That contrast therapy is really terrific. A couple of things.

If people want to maximally stimulate metabolism, fat loss, the accumulation of what we call brown fat, which people might think is a bad thing, but brown fat is brown because it's rich with mitochondria. It's not the blubbery fat. It's actually little pockets of fat around our clavicles and spinal cord

that keeps us warm when it's cold out. and it acts as kind of a fuel in it, like the oil in a candle. Very beneficial. Kids have tons of it, why? Kids can't shiver. Babies can't shiver. So they have a lot of brown fat to keep them warm

to keep them alive in case they get cold. Pretty cool. And no pun intended. The, your protocol's terrific. Ending on cold is the best way to stimulate your metabolism because it forces you to warm back up naturally. This is what I call the Soberg principle

named after Susanna Soberg in Skinnynyby who sent you, essentially discovered these mechanisms, and is a big proponent of these mechanisms. She's a serious academic, publishes research studies. The way you configured it works, you could also, if you wanted, end on heat, but you wouldn't get the same increase in metabolism.

You look like you're in great shape and lean. That's how I used to do it, like, right? When I was first learning, I would end on the heat, which is much easier, right? Because you're automatically warmed up. But now I, after I listened to that episode you did, and now I end on the cold, which in the beginning is interesting. It's challenging.

but now I feel a lot better doing it that way. Yeah, the cold stimulates metabolism, especially if you end on cold. The critique sometimes is that the amount of caloric burn isn't that great, but that's total garbage. When people say that, it's clear that they don't really understand the way adrenaline works because it's well known that when you do a cold ice bath or shower or immersion of some kind,

even 20 seconds at very cold temperatures or 20 minutes, at moderately cool temperature, causes a massive increase in epinephrine, adrenaline, and dopamine that lasts several hours. So improvements in alertness and mood, these are healthy increases in dopamine and epinephrine and in metabolism. The sauna is an interesting one.

First of all, I recommend, I'm not a huge fan of infrared sauna. I'm not against it. I had a note there. I wanted you to explain why. We have an episode out right now, actually all about cold and cold therapies, and we have another one about heat coming out

and one about light. But to just cut to the chase, light and red light can be very powerful. We talked about UVV light, getting on the skin, getting in the eyes, hormone health, alert and asleep, et cetera. Red light has its value, and I didn't mention this before,

so I'll use this as an opportunity to say that there's beautiful studies out of University of College London showing that three minutes of red light exposure to your eyes early in the day can offset some of the age-related vision loss. So like a juve? Something like that.

Okay. The other one, cozy makes a really good one. You don't want to get too close. Again, never so bright that it's painful to look at. You don't wanna damage your eyes. But work from Glenn Jeffries lab at University College London, very reputable lab, is shown that just a couple of minutes three times per week

can offset some of the mitochondrial changes and vision loss that can occur. So that's a great practice. I do that. I have a cozy light. I'm not sponsored by them. They don't sponsor the pockets, but they sent me a little panel and I love that thing.

And I'll just gonna stare there. Incidentally, there are also people who are putting red light on their, on their abdomen, it has been shown to be useful for acne and skin lesions and scar healing. This is a real thing because of the way red light can go deep into the skin. It won't make the scar worse, like sunlight would? No, if anything, it can be used to heal scars more quickly. So a lot of the photo, the Nobel Prize in 1908 was given for phototherapy for the treatment

of lupus. So this is not some crazy new biohacking thing. What happens is a long wavelength light, red light can get down through the skin and impact mitochondria. Now, if somebody is offering you a red light therapy to get to a deep organ, like your brain, unless it's through by the eyes or to some deep organ, have them talk to me because that red light is not going to go past the deeper layers of your skin. So if people are putting red light to get to the ovary or something on the outside, I'm sorry. That doesn't, that doesn't square with the, with the physics. I just have to ask you, can you do red light

pregnant? Because it's a huge controversy. I take my routine, my morning routine, pretty serious. So serious that Michael Bostick is not even allowed to speak to me. That's true. Not even allowed to even get near you. You know what else I take seriously? My lemon water with chlorophyll, my probiotic, and my light movement and hydration. So I like to wake up. I like to open the shades.

I like to get my lemon water. I do a couple chlorophyll drops in there. Then I take my Just Thrive probiotic every single morning. And I like this probiotic because it's one of the only probiotics that's. survives the trip to the gut. So many people are out there listening are taking probiotics that are not surviving the trip to the gut. So basically it seems like it's pointless, right? I am very much about doing my own research and everyone should do their own research when it comes to the supplements they're taking. So just thrive checks all the boxes for me. We have had a microbiologist on the podcast.

He agrees with this. We've had the founder on. The way that they've created this probiotic is absolutely game-changing. They recently launched a new product called Just Calm, and this is a product that they recommend using before you go to bed. So now I wake up with Just Thrive, and I can wind down with Just Calm. And what this does is it reduces stress, it improves sleep quality, and it even encourages a better focus and flow. So if you want to bookend your day and you want to have your probiotic in the morning and just calm at night, you'll be making some wellness moves. And right now you can get 15% off both products when you go to Justthrive.com and use code skinny at checkout. That is just thrivehealth.com. Use code skinny. I'm of the mind that, you know,

listen, I started off as a, it worked in a lot of areas of science, but one is it developmental biology. And I teach embryology. And I teach development of the nervous system. And it's such an exquisite system. I would not put some potent external stimulus in there. I would just say, just avoid it. So, Lauren, this topic of cold plunge sauna, red lights, No, I just, hold on. Let me just sit in the corner. But once you're done, you're going to know all these protocols. No, I think, I think, yeah, I'll just go watch porn.

The cold shower, the cold shower, please don't. I mean, well, listen, I mean, of the sort that we were talking about before. I'm really of the mind that real life experiences are what we should cultivate. Anyway, I realize we're just joking around here. But the, I think the physiological sigh perfectly safe, you know, extremes of any kind of heat or light or anything or something to avoid while pregnant. Development is just such a beautifully orchestrated process. Why would you tamper with it?

And your well-being is not going to, you're doing so many other things perfect and well that there's no reason to do that. The red light therapy can be useful. Some people are also using red light on testicles in order to stimulate sperm production. There are some interesting data on UVB and red light for stimulating testosterone increases.

There are probably better ways to stimulate testosterone increases is using light, like light to the skin generally. I'm going to do an episode all about the use of light and other ways to modulate hormones. And as much as I'm going to probably regret doing it, the data on red light because of the skin is so thin on the scrotum and their light can permeate to the testicle and blood flow is a big part of keeping any organ healthy.

So there's something there. Now, in terms of cold and heat, if you had an ideal world, you would do the cold exposure early in the day. Why? Because it gives you a shot of a, adrenaline and when you're in the cold, yes, your body temperature goes down, but when you get out, the metabolism increases due to an increase in body temperature. And if you remember, increase in

body temperature wakes you up. Sauna is the opposite. When you get into the sauna or any kind of hot environment, hot bath or hot tub would also work just as well, by the way, except for men that are looking to reproduce, it will definitely kill your sperm at higher rates than if you stay out of hot water. That old thing of, you know, wearing boxer shorts, not, you know, like really tight briefs and staying out of hot tubs if you're trying to get pregnant, well then, you know, or make someone pregnant, then that's true because sperm, the reason the scrotum has the architecture and the ability to move the testicles further away or closer to the body is to optimize. So once she pops his baby out and if we want to take a break, I should be in that sauna all

all the time. Depends on. You're going to lock you in the fucking sauna with the jacuzzi in there. No comment. The other thing some people will do is they'll take, you know, I guess we're getting right down to the nuts and bolts of it. No point. unintended, but some people just take a jar of cool water or something and they'll put it in their groin while they're in the sauna and keep their testicles cool enough to maintain sperm production. Heat and sperm. A little ice bath for your testing. We're taking a little break. We need a, we're going to slow down. It turns out that there's a market now for like boxers that

are cold pack boxers because a lot of guys think it will increase testosterone. Here's the interesting thing. It actually doesn't increase testosterone. It basically makes the testicles very cold so that when they remove the ice packs, there's a hyper-perfusion of blood there, which it encourages the light-eg cells of the testes to produce testosterone. So in any case, if you were going to use sauna in the ideal time, you would do it in the evening, because while you're in the sauna, you're going to heat up, but then when you get out, there's going to be a natural cooling of the body that lends itself to getting to sleep. Actually, when I'm in Austin, and last night, what I did is after work yesterday, I went to Kuya, and I sat in the saunas, and I really wanted to get into the cold bath, but it was late in the day.

sat in the sauna, I did, I think, three rounds of 20 minutes, but it was the only one I'll do all week. So here's the thing, if you want to get maximum growth hormone release from the sauna, do it very seldom one to three times per week. Huge increases in growth hormone, but you do it for like four or five rounds of 20 minutes. That's a lot. That's a full day. You've got to find Jesus at that third one. Yeah, you're just, you're basically the guy hanging out at the sauna. Question before we, as we go, and especially because I know we're getting tight. So the temperatures, And I know, like, I've heard you talk, you kind of, you say it depends. Yeah, I can, so with cold, uncomfortably cold, you really want to get out, but you can stay in safely.

So these people that like, like, you know, the guy that's going, it's like 36 degrees and they need to stay for three, four minutes. You don't, it's not. You can get into four degrees Celsius water for 20 seconds and get some of the effects I'm talking about. Or you can get into 65 degree water for 45 minutes. Studies have been done that way and see the results I'm talking about. I'm at like 45 right now. Yeah. I don't like to go much colder.

Here's the thing. it's a lot like weightlifting. You actually don't want to cold adapt too much because then you won't get the benefits. You'll still get some benefits, but not too many. So the pain is a good thing, provided it doesn't harm you. Now, that's the beauty of cold

because with heat, eventually you're going to get tissue damage. Now with sauna, it's very clear that 80 degrees to 100 degrees Celsius, so that's 176 degrees Fahrenheit to 212 degrees Fahrenheit is a great range to work. And at least that's where most of the studies have been done. And I would say if you get into the sauna and it's uncomfortably hot, remember breathing through your nose in the sauna is going to be a little bit more painful than breathing through your mouth,

but try and do that really slow nasal breathing if you can. And anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, it's great, but don't go hyperthermic, right? I mean, the last thing we want to do is have someone crank up the sauna to 220, get in there for 20 minutes, and get hyperthermic and die or kill some neurons. You know, ease into it. Ease into it. And then when you get out of the sauna, you can take a nice, cool. shower at Kuya and I have no relationships and I just think it's a great little place and their

prices are pretty reasonable especially their memberships and if I lived in Austin I would definitely be a member so it's also a beautiful place they have plants hanging and all the stuff if Kuya wasn't already packed enough here we fucking go yeah sorry yeah well and then the Bay Area there's like a place called Archimedes Banya that I've gone to when I'm in New York I always go to Spy 88 again I have no relationship to the place these are just places you go when you're on when I travel sona and cold is harder to get to but I make the effort you know I'd we just we had to go back to California for two weeks for work and I didn't have, I've been doing this regularly. I didn't have the sun or the cold there. And I

noticed the difference. How do you think I feel for 10 months? Yeah, yeah. It'll be that much better. It's like people who, I'm not a drinker, but it's like people who really love a good glass of wine and then they're pregnant and they just cannot wait. I hear this and the dopamine release from it will be that much greater. Well, when in California, if you're near the Pacific, the Pacific Ocean, as long as you can swim, makes a great cold dunk. And for heat, you can use hot showers, cold showers. There just aren't as many studies of those because you can imagine it's harder to control the conditions. Whereas putting people into water up to the neck is key. If you really want to push it hard, you can get into an ice bath or cold water immersion. And I always appreciate how on social media, it's all these guys,

it's usually guys looking really tough and stoic. Like, I'm just sitting here and I'm being hard. Actually, when you stay still, you develop a thermal layer of heat around you. If you really are a tough guy or gal, move your arms and limbs around in there. I was very depressed when I heard you say that because I started doing it. And then when you get out, instead of huddling like this, stretch your limbs out so you evaporate over more of your body. Now I can find the real men. Yeah, yeah.

And if you get in the sauna and you're having a hard time staying in there, believe it or not, put on a wool beanie cap. It will insulate your brain to the heat. Because that's what signals you to like get out, get out. That's right. And so your brain will remain a little bit cooler and you'll feel fine. Now, don't override the signals to the point where you die, please. I don't say that to protect me as much as I say that to protect the

listener. So ease into these protocols. Don't do them if you're pregnant. There's also really interesting data now, peer review data on the use of sauna anywhere from three to seven times per week for offsetting mental health issues. One thing is very clear. Death due to cardiovascular event or what's called all cause mortality. So strokes and other, that's a cardiovascular, but ways to die, always to die is reduced by 27% in people that do sauna two to three times per week. And in people that do sauna for about 10 to 20, maybe 30 minutes at the temperature range, as I described, for four to seven times per week, you reduce death to all cause mortality by 50%. So I'm a huge fan of David Sinclair's work and all the work on NMN and all this anti-aging stuff.

I guess that's the word that I use, anti-aging longevity. but if you look at the data on living longer and being healthier, there are two things that are undeniably the biggest accelerators of you, and extenders of lifespan and health span. And that's 150 to 200 minutes of zone two cardio per week. So pure nasal breathing, just at the threshold where a conversation would be hard. And sauna.

You just cannot deny it. It's like if you look at all plant, you know, plant-based diet versus carnivore, it's still debated. They'll be debating until the end. These things are like you would stake your... This is, it's like the difference between a cannon and a cap gun. Okay, I do take a little bit of pure NMN each morning.

I've been playing around with that and sure I feel more energized. Will it extend my life? I don't know. But if you look at the data, it's absolutely clear. The zone two cardio thing and the use of sauna, dramatic increases. And then, of course, I love resistance training and doing other things too. I love eating well, all that stuff. But it's like sunlight in your eyes in the morning.

sauna or hot shower or hot bath four times per week for 20 minutes, which is pretty pleasant, right? And then the Zone 2 cardio, the problem is that a lot of people don't do it. It's boring. Zone 2 cardio is not as much fun as a hit-hit session. I'm trying to, is zone 2 cardio is like a faster-paced walk? What's the number on the treadmill? Well, it depends on your level of cardiovascular fitness.

So some people will be really taxed by a fast walk, but sure, fast walking. I like to think of it as an easy jog, easy jog where you could talk about the day's events to your partner or to somebody. You're not catching breath. But if you pushed any harder, it would be hard to have that conversation.

The best way you do is just head out by yourself and just nasal breathe, force yourself to nasal breathe, and push to the point where nasal breathing becomes hard and then just throttle back a little bit and go for 30 to 45 minutes. I don't even consider exercise. It's just kind of fundamental

to getting your cardiovascular system to work. And it won't compete out any, you know, strength gains, hypertrophy gains, if that's your thing, you're trying to get stronger or bigger in the gym. It's not going to be a big taxation on your system. You can do it morning, afternoon or night without disrupting your system because, you know, you do a hit training in the evening. Some people feel really tired after that. Some people feel too ramped up. You don't need caffeine to do it. It's without question one of the best things you can do. And we should all do it. And I'll be honest, I struggle to do it because it's not very interesting.

Right. You could listen to your podcast. You could listen to your podcast or our podcast. or a podcast. You could think your thoughts. You could look off in the distance while you do it. You could get your eyesight thing going there. You could push the stroller. You could do whatever it is. You guys have one kid already. And then the other's on the way. I say more. I say five. Five kids. Oh, okay. No, we have ambitions to keep like where. Yeah. I like a big family. Let me get through this. Let me get through this. It's just statistics. The best way to reduce variability is increase sample size. So you just increase sample size. Oh, okay. So last thing on the sauna. Then I want to talk about workouts and we've started touching on zone two.

Is 57 minutes the minimum or is that like that you're like once you get your 57, you're good? Because that's where I've been a little unclear. Like I know the 11 seems like that's, you know, like these guys that say, hey, you need to be in a nice bath for 13 minutes in one session, three days a week. That seems a little excessive. But for the son is 57 minutes, your minimum or is that? I remember being in high school using Murad. It has been around for so long. It's a dermatologist founded skincare.

And it's all about science-backed, clinically proven total skin. health. So I like this brand because they really, really do their research. The product that I recommend from this brand for everyone, I tell all my friends about it, is the correct and protect serum broad spectrum SPF 45. So what this is is it's a mineral SPF. You know I'm all about SPF. But why I like it is it does two things at once. So it's protecting your skin, but it's also clinically proven to correct discoloration, which I very much have. And I have even more of it now that I'm pregnant and it also helps prevent hyperpigmentation like dark spots or uneven skin tone. So I notice that as I age, like I'll have like little tiny freckles that get maybe a little bit darker.

And to know that I'm having an SPF that's protecting my skin while also helping to improve my discoloration is a real game changer. I feel like it's multitasking. And also something to note that's really important is this SPF protects without leaving behind that white cast. There's nothing worse than a white cast. It lays nice under makeup, mineral-based. You are going to go to shop mirad.com to save 20% off and get free shipping with your $60 purchase when you use code skinny. All you have to do is go to shop mirad.com to save 20% off and free shipping with a $60 purchase when you use code skinny. Again, that's m-U-R-A-D.com, use code skinny. I would shoot for 57 is the threshold to get. There are a couple of positive effects on metabolism that kick in when you're getting 11 minutes total

per week of this uncomfortable cold exposure. You could get it all in one session or you could spread it out. There are benefits that kick in at that 57 minutes per week of uncomfortable heat exposure. And I should mention the uncomfortable part because the heat and the cold has one thing in common, which is they both stimulate adrenaline release. That desire to get out of the sauna. I guess you I was in the sauna at Kuyen. I was feeling like, God, I really want to get out.

And the timer looked like it was going so slowly and thinking, you know, probably from travel or I'd done a long bout of work. Who knows why. But that discomfort is really valuable, provided it's safe. Now, if you did an hour of sauna, that's fine. If you do an hour and 20 minutes, that's fine. More than an hour and a half of sauna per week, and you're in the, that's a lot of sauna.

Okay. That's a lot of sauna. It's like 57 threshold, hour and a half. Like, maybe you reach the top marks. Unless you're trying to drop weight for a fight or something or you are getting paid to sauna, it seems a bit excessive. There are other parts of life, I think, that, that are calling those people.

Now, in terms of the cold, one of the goals is to not become cold adapted. Unlike weight training, where there's always more weight to add to the bar, you can only make it so cold or so hot before you eventually damage yourself. So you want to get the maximum results from the minimum change in temperature or duration. So I would play little games. I would get into the cold and some days maybe go an extra 10 seconds. Other days, move your body around so you're getting a little bit colder. Some days get out and dry off, limbs extended.

Other days, take a hot shower afterwards. I would mix it up. You just don't want to get used to it. You don't want to get used to it. In the same way that if you get really good at Wimhoff breathing or cyclic hyperventilation of the type I described before, you'll notice that you kind of crave a more intense stimulus. And so it's a lot like the way I would encourage someone to weight train,

which is add as little weight to the bar as necessary in order to get the improvement. In fact, for a lot of people, staying at the same weight, but moving the bar more slowly or contracting the muscle more vigorously is going to be better because at some point you're setting yourself up for injury or you're going to need a training partner or you're spending all your time loading weights on and off. This isn't going to be a problem for a lot of people because there's always more weights in the stack to approach. But the idea that more weight is always better or colder is always better or longer is always better in one sense is true, but you have to compete that out against the variables of life.

And you also don't want to be all day in the cold. So if you, I would say, say three minutes, I would say three to four minutes, three sessions or so per week of cold, great. And then do that for a while. And actually your travel where you don't get in it for a week or so is probably a good thing. Well, because I came back and I couldn't do as long as I, like, meaning I did it this weekend and I had to, normally I'll do like 20 minutes on a session. That was like 15 was tough. And then this normally I'll do like four minutes in cold and like three minutes was tough. And so I feel like I lost a little bit of the adaptation that I had. Yeah, it's like being out of the gym for a little bit. Okay, two more topics. We've started talking about fitness and

workouts a little bit, and we talked about zone two. When it comes to training in your training protocol or something that you would prescribe to anyone trying to get fit, is there a certain type of workout routine that you think blanketly across everybody should kind of think about or try and partake in? Yeah, I think health-wise and indirectly, aesthetics-wise, you know, 150 to 200 minutes per week of Zone 2 cardio, as we've talked about. That could be in the form of swimming, walking on the treadmill, ideally you do it outside, if it's fast walking or incline walking, jogging, cycling, whatever works for people.

People are going to pick their thing is going to be required for health. There's just no question about it. Six to 10 sets per body part of resistance training with weights or with some or with machines or even body weight, although it's a little harder to get the complete by workout. One can do it with a little bit of research and skill training per week, six to ten sets of resistance training. What do I mean six to ten sets?

I mean six to ten work sets where the last repetitions are very hard and maybe even to failure. What's very clear from our, we did an episode with Dr. Andy Gallupin as a professor at Cal State Fullerton. It's just an encyclopedia of all things endurance strength and hypertrophy training. Works with athletes, where it's with everyday people understands the science and also understands the practical elements. It's very clear that if your main goal is strength, that you want to do relatively low repetition ranges

of three to five repetitions of three to five sets with three to five minutes between sets, three to five exercises, three to five times a week. He calls it the three by five concept. So taking that long of a break between sets? If your main goal is strength. If your main goal is... What is they called?

Superset. Could you do different body parts? Sure. Push pull, bench press pull up. Sure. And then only 90 seconds between the push and the pull. that can work. It's very clear that for strength gains,

and this is true for men and women, I should say. A lot of women think, oh, I don't want to get too big. One way to get, by the way, ladies, one way to get really strong without getting big is actually to train very heavy in the low repetition range of three to five repetitions, which will make muscles and connected tissue strong without making it grow very much.

Higher repetition work of six to 25 repetitions is optimal for hypertrophy, for muscle growth. So for the women out there who are thinking, oh, I'm going to do, or men who are thinking, oh, I don't want to get too big, I'm going to do 15 reps sets, lighter weights. Well, if those final repetitions are bringing you close to failure or to failure, you're stimulating hypertrophy.

So to be clear, because actually, maybe I didn't realize this, you will get stronger by doing heavier, low rep sets, but you may not get as big, but you will get bigger by doing lighter but high rep sets. As provided you go to failure, Okay, provided you good to go. Okay. Yeah.

So now, most people want a mix of both. Sure. Most guys it seem want a mix of both. Women, you know, the goals vary, depending on the person, their natural bill. So the typical repetition ranges for people that want to get stronger and grow muscle is going to be somewhere between five and 12 repetitions. And the final repetitions of those sets are going to be hard. And some of them maybe, you know, 50% of them you're actually taking to failure where you can't move the muscle, you can't move the weight anymore in good form. The lowering phase of the so-called eccentric portion of any

resistance exercise is going to induce more damage and soreness than the concentric. So a barbell curl bringing your wrist towards the shoulders, the concentric lowering is when lowering the weight back down. Emphasizing the eccentric portion of any lift will induce more muscle damage, which is one of the stimuli for muscle hypertrophy. However, getting a lot of blood into a muscle is another way to stimulate hypertrophy. So for someone who wants to cut across all three of these parameters, so for somebody that wants to cut across all three of these parameters, wants to get stronger or maintain strength,

wants to put on some size, probably in particular muscles. These days I hear a lot about, you know, people want to grow their glutes or people want to do that, you know, glutes seem to be very popular now. The best person out there, in terms of training programs for glutes, by the way, for women and men, but he has a lot of protocols. It's a guy I've never met him, but we've communicated a little bit on social media, no business relationship, a guy named Brett Glute Guy Contreras,

who's a PhD in exercise physiology, and has really figured out the optimal protocols, for instance, for growing glutes without making thighs bigger. He's the absolute ninja of all this stuff. And he's a PhD and very smart and clear and articulate and has some great programs for people doing that. But in general, you know, if someone wanted an all-around fitness program, it would be the following. Weight train or resistance train of some kind every other day, involving a warm up of five to ten minutes and then hard work on various body parts.

We could talk about body parts split. Then on the off days, you do your zone two cardio. Or you do it in the morning after your weight training or in the afternoon after your weight training. So it would be weight train next day, zone two cardio, weight train and so on. one day per week, it's a good idea to get your heart rate way, way up into near max range for 90 seconds. So this is something that Andy Galpin taught me. One day a week, go out to a track or a field and sprint for all out. Warm up, then sprint for 90 seconds, then jog or walk for 90 seconds,

sprint for 90 seconds, jog or walk for 90 seconds, sprint for 90 seconds, and then jog, and you're done. It doesn't have to be a long thing. No. And so it could just be like a burst of really pushing you to the limit. So if you think about that program that I just described, and you're working the weight training in that anywhere from five to 12 repetition range, depending on the exercise, et cetera, and you're not doing more than one hour of hard work with the weights.

This is something that's really key. Unless people have amazing abilities of recovery, training very hard with weights for more than 60 minutes is going to increase cortisol, reduce other anabolic hormones like testosterone and estrogen and DHA and things of that sort. So it's really warm up and hit it hard in the weight room and then get out. Just really, really get out. Don't two-hour workouts, maybe fine if people are anabolic-assisted, you know,

taking TRT at high levels or something I recommend. We could talk about hormone therapies. But get in, get the work done and get out. 50 minutes, 5-0 is probably even better. And then zone 2 cardio on the off days or maybe even on the weight training days. And then one day a week doing those interval runs or you could even do it with, you know, sprinting upstairs or things of that sort. If you really look at that program, that's a program that's going to give you some strength.

it's going to give you some hypertrophy. So not every set to failure, only about half. Lower rep sets, not to failure for the strength stuff. Some sets in the 8 to 12 rep range to failure for hypertrophy. On the off days, you're doing Zone 2 cardio. And then one day a week, you're getting some sprints in so that your body is accustomed to doing these max, keeping your VO2 max up.

And then if you really have the time and energy and you're a little bit masochistic, you could do mile repeats once a week or once every two weeks. You go out and run for a mile at your fastest, pace, don't kill yourself, but run fastest pace. Let's say that took eight minutes, well then rest for eight minutes or walk for eight minutes, then do it again. And then again, if you do that once every two weeks, now you've got a program where you're getting strong, you've got hypertrophy, you're maintaining muscle strength and size, we're building it. You are

in your zone two cardio. And it sounds like a lot, but everything I just described is a total of about six hours per week because the zone two cardio is like 30 minutes on your off days. So it's not that much. And what I just described. basically average of like an hour of training or less a day. So for, yeah, so I've been doing essentially that program minus a few things that I plan to incorporate now for 30 years. I'm 46. I started training when I was 16. Thanks. I feel good. I've always felt good. Well, it's part of the reason I honestly, outside of all the credentials in here, I mean, I feel like I can throw anything at your answer.

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Sprinkle it everywhere. Yeah, I do these practices. You know, I mean, I'm definitely not the fittest or the strongest guy in the gym. I'm definitely not the fastest guy or most endurance. But, you know, I can go out. If I had to run a marathon today, I know I could complete it. you know, I can pick up and put down heavy object. I can open the pickle jar in our house.

I'm the guy who opens the jar, so that feels good, right? I don't want to set the bar too low, guys, but, you know, you know, and as you get older, you know, it's not just about keeping your heart healthy. And when I say older, I mean into the, you know, 40s and 50s and on, it's also about maintaining tissue health and not being injured. You know, knock on wood, but ever since I stopped skateboarding and boxing when I was younger, you know, I haven't had a major injury in the gym in a long time, mostly because I use parameters like moving the weight more slowly or really trying to focus

hard and contract the muscle more strongly. It's one of the most important things. If you're interested in powerlifting and moving a lot of weight, focus on moving the bar or the dumbbell. But for most people, this mind muscle connection that you often hear about, that's the parameter that's really going to lead to improvements in aesthetics and hypertrophy because it has to do we have multiple systems within the brain and body for contracting muscles and your body works very hard to not use those systems to not think about walking, not think about moving the bar.

So if you're gonna train in the gym, don't look in the mirror, focus on challenging muscles. This is Ben Pekolsky who's a phenomenally accomplished bodybuilder at one point, but now is more just in the fitness realm, really taught me, don't think about moving weights, think about challenging muscles. And if people out there, men and women, both are thinking, well, there's certain muscles

that grow really easily and other muscles they're really challenging, like some people struggle with symmetry. And guys especially, like it's so ridiculous. These guys are starting to look like, you know, they're curling over on themselves and it's like they skipping leg day and the whole thing or, you know,

the key is if you can contract a muscle really strongly with no weight in like almost where it cramps, that's a good indication that you can grow that muscle easily. Whereas if it's a muscle that you have a hard time engaging, like a lot of people have a hard time engaging the glutes, that's why there are ways in which people can learn how to do that. That's neural.

That's the nervous system. So a lot of weight training is about the nervous system. But anyway, weight training every other day for about 50, 5,0 minutes to an hour of real work once you're warmed up, then getting out. And then zone 2 cardio, 152 minutes per week. I'm saying it again on purpose. And then maybe once a week getting up to that maximum heart rate during the cardio at the end of a zone 2 cardio.

And then once every couple of weeks going out and seeing how fast you can run a mile, you're going to be a very fit individual. It's very low cost. The resistance training stuff can be done with body weight. It could be chins and dips and things you might have to go to a park. But none of this stuff requires any fancy equipment. And then the only other thing I would point out is that there are a lot of interesting things coming out of the idea of walking backward.

You know, the knees over toes guy, Ben Parker, he's great. Recently, we took a vacation with him and his wife and kid down to Costa Rica, and we did a lot of backward walking. And walking backwards does some things to support the lower limbs and the hips and the back in ways that can really support knee structure. So now when we wake up in the morning, my partner and I actually go to this hill and we walk backwards while talking, getting our long distance viewing in our sunlight. We're going to do some backwards walking. So what you realize is you can start to fold these different protocols in together.

You don't have to spend your whole day optimizing your biology. So we're walking backward up a hill, getting our long distance viewing, even if it's cloudy out. We are getting optic flow. A lot of this stuff is very simple. I mean, the mechanisms are complicated and you obviously explain. detail, but if you really think about it, you're talking about maybe six to eight hours of fitness a week, max. You're talking about, you know, two hours max of cold hot. If you decide to do cold hot, I would say the exercise part is going to be the most, the sleep part is the most

important thing. The exercise part would be second. Of course, nutrition is its own thing. And that's very simple to talk about without having to say more than two sentences. It's as we said before, mostly unprocessed whole foods. And whether or not you eat meat or you don't, I do. I'm an omnivore, right? I realize it's kind of an active defiance nowadays to say that you eat meat and rice, but I happen to like vegetables, rice and meat, you know. There are a lot of foods I don't like. There are a lot of foods I like. I'm an omnivore. Eating mostly healthy, unprocessed foods and, you know, not eating them in excess. And you're going to do better than 90% of people out there. What does Andrew break his fast with if you're fasting? So I do a sort of pseudely,

intermittent fasting where I don't really want to eat much until about 11 or noon each day. Feel the same way. But I also tend to eat pretty big dinners. And so when I wake up in the morning, I'm not really thinking about food. I mean, my guilty pleasures, which I don't feel guilty about, are I love croissants. I have no sweet tooth. For the last two years, I completely, I don't know what happened, but I have no desire. Magnesium, probably. Could be magnesium. That's the last topic I want to talk to you about. I know. Supplementation. Yeah, and thank you so much for spending so much time. Wait, I need to know what he eats in the morning. It's in there. I want to talk about supplementation, eating, fasting. You eat a croissant or what? You were going to say something else. If I'm going to, if I'm going to break protocol and just enjoy a treat, it would be croissants. Croscant. Yeah, I love croissants. The issue is I'll eat all of the croissants. With butter. I would never adulterate my croissants with anything besides butter, but I'll put butter on the croissant. I like pancakes. I like croissants. And if you do a hard, uh,

resistance training workout, you actually want to replenish glycogen. It's a great time to have pancakes with fruit and syrup like after your weight training, because you're mostly going to siphon that into glycogen storage. That's a hard workout. I'm not talking about 100 push-ups across four sets and a couple sit-ups. I'm talking about sets to failure of the sort week before. You can- Pish-ups and have a stack of pancakes.

Yeah, I mean, I will sometimes, I like to train fasted in the morning. Same. But keep in mind that's with water and caffeine. A lot of people are going to say, what breaks your fast? Anything with substantial calories or that raises your blood sugar. You taught me athletic greens may not break the fast or does not. It does not break my fast because it doesn't raise my blood glucose very much. And we have to remember that things that break the fast, the question is also how long does it break the fast?

So fasting is not an event. It's a process. So I generally don't want to eat anything until about 11 or noon, as I mentioned. I always have some Brazil nuts or walnuts around. If I hungry, if I have those, then I can push out to one or two. I don't do the one meal per day thing because I end up eating so much food that I have a lot of, you know,

I almost explode, but I have a huge appetite. I'm very fortunate that my partner's a really good cook. And so basically all I do is work, sleep, work out, hang out with her, you know. I'm going to have another dog soon. You know, so I mean, I don't really do much else, but work is a big part of my day. I work very, very long days.

But I push this stuff in throughout the day, these health practices. So I don't tend to have cheat meals very often. But if I go to someone's home and they're serving a big bowl of pasta, of course I'm needed. I always find those people weird that can't. It's like, okay, one day, break it up a little. Get out of the routine, you know.

It's probably good too. And some days if you end up, I, for instance, am a big fan of eating relatively low carbohydrate during the day. So meat and vegetables throughout the day because carbohydrates tend to make us sleepy. So unless you do a really hard weight workout first, you don't need much glycogen, packing during the day. But so on a day where I wake up, once I eat, I'll have some,

you know, meat or fish or chicken or something and some, I like vegetables. And I do like some fruits, especially berries are just so delicious. And then as the evening comes around, I'll eat more before, my dinner generally is more rice or pasta's, less protein. And I sleep much better as a consequence because the,

the carbohydrates lend themselves to the serotonin triptophan system. You sleep great. And then it also repacks glycogen. And then the next morning I get up All I want is water and coffee, and then I want to get into the gym or go sprint or do something like that. Okay. Last question about supplementation. And I think we could probably at this point of the show skip things like D and, you know,

Omega is because we've taught everybody, I think blankily you would say. They're foundational. Yeah, the foundational stuff. But are there things in your supplementation routine that you also think people should look at? I'll tell you two things that I learned from you. One, the glycine in the GABA, three nights a week. How's your sleep? Great.

And then also that sleep cocktail, I think one thing you touched on earlier is a lot of people think they need melatonin when they go to sleep. And I listened to an early episode of yours and you basically mentioned, I told you I'm a big fan, mentioned that melatonin is maybe getting you to sleep but not keeping you asleep and that you had this other sleep cocktail with apigenin and all that. So maybe just supplements that you think people haven't heard as commonly as D and no megas and A and all those things. Yeah.

So as you mentioned, make sure you're getting up D3. get above one gram of EPA omega-3 essential fatty acids. Above a gram EPA does not mean taking a omega that's 1.5 grams. Look at the package, look how much EPA is in there. Why? Well, the improvements on mood are phenomenal. You're just going to feel so much better of getting one to three grams. The most cost-efficient way to do that is going to be liquid.

Carlson's are another brand. Again, no affiliation. You're taking one to three tablespoons per day of fish oil. Okay. for sleep, supplements that can really improve sleep. And today I have some new ones to share with you. Again, I don't care what brand people use. Just look for a reputable one, okay?

So, because I don't want people to think this is gearing back to us for any reason. But in any case, many people who have trouble falling and staying asleep will take melatonin. Bad idea. Melatonin has another role, which is to suppress puberty. It has impacts on other hormones. Don't take it except for jet lag or there's some interesting data on migraine. If you take it, take a very low dose because most of the 1 to 3 to 6 to 12 milligrams, that is a absolutely outrageous amount of melatonin.

So not a fan of melatonin. Magnesium 3onate, T-H-R-E-O-N-A-T-E, 140 milligrams, and then it'll say elemental 2,000 milligrams, just look on about 144 milligrams or 140 milligrams of magnesium 3-8. taken 30 to 60 minutes before sleep helps a lot of people transition into sleep and get deeper sleep. It's also brain protective. There's some evidence that can offset some of age-related cognitive decline. Still early data. And I crave chocolate less.

Interesting. There are other forms of magnesium like magnesium bisglycinate, which are interchangeable with magnesium 3 and 8. The other supplement that a lot of people do well on is Apigenin, Api-G-E-N-I-N-50 milligrams of Apaginin. the only source that I'm aware of is Swanson. Very inexpensive. It is the stuff of chemomile that will make you drowsy and help you fall asleep. And then the third thing is thionine, T-H-E-A-A-N-I-N-E, thionine, 100 to 300 milligrams of thionineine.

But if you're a sleepwalker or you have very intense dreams, don't take theanine because it can exacerbate that. Those taken one or several or in combination 30 to 60 minutes before sleep, a lot of people feel better. and sleep better, a lot of people. About 5% of people don't tolerate magnesium well. It gives them some gastric distress. Other forms of magnesium like magnesium citrate

are strong laxatives. So we're not talking about using those, but still some people take 3 and 8 or bisglycinate and they don't feel well. So you just have to find out, but it's only about 5% of people. Now, there is a really wonderful supplement that I haven't talked about previously

that is shown in a lot of peer reviews studies to really reduce anxiety but can also help with sleep. And that's inocetal. I-N-O-S-I-T-O-L. The form to get is myo-inocetal. And 900 milligrams of myo-inocetal taken 30 or 60 minutes before sleep with or without the other stuff I just mentioned. You'll be amazed at how well it works. It also is a very potent anti-anxiety compound. It also has been shown to improve various aspects of female fertility. So that's interesting. examine.com is a great source for evaluating the research and peer-reviewed studies on these. Again, always talk to your doctor, if you, ideally a doctor who is open to things like

supplementation before taking or removing anything. I don't just say that again for liability. I say that to offset liability, I say that to really like people should be smart about what they're taking. All right. eyelashes. Such a hot topic. I used to have eyelash extensions and I feel like they messed up my lashes. So the move is, okay? to do rhoderm. This is our sponsor today. I'm very excited because it's all about lashes. They offer access to clinically proven eyelash growth serum for people who want longer, thicker, darker lashes. A lot of us have had eyelash extensions and you'll notice that your eyelashes are thinner. So this is a great serum that's probably right for you. You can get it prescribed online and the

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energy for the day, what are the things that you're always grabbing? I know you mentioned omega-3 and you also mentioned D, but what else? Right. So that, okay, so the sleep kit, I think we got. And if you have trouble waking up in the middle of the night or with sleeping, if you're a bad sleeper, despite doing everything, I'll give you two free resources. One is if you go to our website, Hubermanlab.com, look in the menu, the neural network newsletter. We have a toolkit for sleep that lists all these dosages and a bunch of behavioral tools, including self-hypnosis for sleep, which is powerful.

A bunch of things, zero cost. You can find it there. And so you don't have to sign up for our newsletter. If you want to, great. We'd appreciate it. And hopefully you'll depreciate it too. But the PDF is just right there. You get it.

Zero cost. No record you were ever there. We're good. For wakefulness. Well, I wake up in the morning and I hydrate. I will put some salt in some water. They are a podcast sponsor by I really like that element stuff, which is a electrolyte solution. I think they're based here in Austin or somewhere in Texas.

Great. Get your electrolytes. If you're eating a pretty clean diet, there's a good chance you need more salt. A lot of women, and my sister's a good example, always thought they had low blood sugar. We feel shaky, anxiety, fluttering of the heart. I had my sister literally taking real salt packets and knocking them back. Her blood pressure was still in range.

So if you have prehypertension or hypertension, obviously avoid high salt intake. There was a period of time where people thought salt was bad, right? You want, and if you look at all-cause mortality and the amount of salt, getting too little salt is bad, getting too much is bad. Process food diets are going to give you a lot of salt for people eating clean. drinking caffeine will cause you to excrete sodium, you're going to do well to have some salt. My sister started taking a little packet of salt with her,

and she's like, oh my God, I can actually think straight. Why? Well, your blood carries oxygen to your brain. And when you don't have enough sodium, especially if you're drinking caffeine, you're excreting sodium, if you're doing any kind of fasting or you're eating really clean, you're going to have low blood volume. You literally get dizzy.

She thought she had an anxiety disorder. She didn't have an anxiety disorder. She had low blood volume, low blood pressure, something called pots where people stand up and they feel dizzy. You might be low on sodium. Huh. That happens to me all the time. A lot of athletes do well by replacing sodium.

So you don't need element. You can also use some salt and magnesium potassium. Does it need to be like sea salt that's high grade level? Or does it? Healthier salt probably better. Okay. They taste better, but it doesn't have to be. I like the sea salt.

I like the way it looks. It's relatively inexpensive. I actually travel with a little thing of sea salt. Salt water in the morning with a little bit of lemon juice also is going to act as a way to flush out your system. I do drink athletic greens in the morning. For me, it doesn't break my fast or if it does very briefly. And then eventually I do the caffeine.

For me, it's Yerba-Mate. I'm a big fan of matte. Now, if you're going to drink mat, I do the pour-over matte, not the canned matte. This goes back to my Argentine roots. It has something in it called, it stimulates the release of something called GLP-1, Gluclecon-like peptide 1, which promotes metabolism and fat loss and insulin management. GLP-1 is now a prescription drug, or analogs of GLP1 are now prescription drugs for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.

So, matte is great. The loose leaf matte is great. Avoid the smoked flavors of matte. This is really serious. The smoked flavoring in matas is highly carcinogenic. Didn't I just read a, was there a controversy that just came about about a mattoe?

Is that what it's from? It's the smoke. It's not the matte. It's the smoked flavors. It's worse than cigarettes. Wow. Oh, wow. Serious carcinia mouth cancers and things.

So there's a great brand. I have no affiliation to them, but Anna Park is an organic matth. you can buy it online. It's relatively inexpensive. You do the pour over one. You can put it in the fridge and ice it. You can put lemon in you want it.

You can put stevia on you if you want it, all that. So that one doesn't have the carcinogenic. No, not that I'm aware of. And so I drink that every day. I travel with it. And I love black coffee and I love espresso and things of that sort. So that's, but supplements for energy, you could do green tea capsules. Some people will do that.

That's a pretty mild form. For cognition and focus, you know, a lot of people nowadays rely on, sadly, Ritalin Adderall, modafinil. Bad idea. Just bad idea. And the best way to scare people out of doing this is unless you're prescribed this for ADHD, tickling that dopamine system to that degree is a serious problem. There's also, keep in mind, it's very amphetamine-like. And there are other effects of amphetamine guys, including shrinkage of the penile tissue and reduce blood flow. I mean, people that take riddlin and adderol end up with

some pretty serious issues. My friend had to stop taking it because he couldn't get hard. Right. Because so it stimulates dopamine release in the brain, which makes people motivated to have. sex, but then when people take stimulants like amphetamine or cocaine, or ridolin or adderol or modafinil, what ends up happening is there's vaso-constriction and blood flow shuts down. All the major treatments for erectile dysfunction are things like Cialis and Viagra, which are PD5 inhibitors, which promote blood flow. I should mention that nowadays, it's kind of interesting. There's a lot of prescription, on-label prescription of very low-dose Cialis of 2.5 to 5 milligrams, not for sexual function, but for prostate health.

Because also, you know, when you tell younger guys about this, they're like, oh, prostate, whatever, I don't care. Yeah, well, when those guys are in their 30s and they've been vasoconstricting by taking energy drinks and red bull monster and rock star, and they've been taking Adderall and Ritalin, and their prostate actually doesn't function, that's often a cause of a lot of sexual health issues.

So do you think that may be one of the reasons that people are having so many sexual health issues Is that the rise of these things, or it's just that in combination with other things? I think it's a lot of things. I'm going to do a whole series on sexual health. There's a huge reason. Some of it is the high intensity, high availability of pornography. Some of it is the overuse of stimulants, modafinal, riddlin, et cetera, energy drinks.

Not one energy drink every once in a while, not a problem, but chronic use of stimulants that vaso-constrict. Part of it also is what we call psychosexual development. Part of it is relationship dynamics, cultural dynamics, where discussions about, important discussions, obviously, about consent and things like that, have a lot of younger guys now are just kind of, they're like, they just don't wanna deal.

They just don't know how to have. Basically as humans, discussions about sex and sexuality are make people uncomfortable for two reasons. Either they make people uncomfortable because it's kind of a, there's some taboo elements to it, or unfortunately, in my, this is my opinion, a lot of the people who are out there

really talking about sexual health are kind of on the opposite extreme. They're so comfortable with these extreme topics that it's a little bit aversive to people. With any topic, biology, psychology, sexual health, climate science, of which I'm still very confused, by the way. There's so much data on every side and everyone seems so combative and I'm just trying to sort it out.

I do recycle in the meantime. The conversation needs to be more grounded, right? It can't be all, you know, it can't be so extreme on one end or the other. So I'm looking to bring some experts in. Also just talking about it from a biological perspective, urology, like keeping that all the plumbing healthy is really great. Here's an interesting thing.

A lot of people that do heavy squatting and deadlifting in the gym or a lot of cycling end up with a lot of nerve damage and vascular flow damage to the genitals. This is true in men and women, right? There's a discussion, but women are always more comfortable talking about reproductive health because they have cycles and they're used to talking about this stuff, much more so than men.

So I think that's part of the reason. A lot of women who heavy weight trained with dead lifts and squats, if they don't do it properly, they have pelvic floor issues and they start, they get leaky, literally. they start leaking urine. And so there just needs to be a conversation about it. To me, it's all biology. You remove the moral part about it.

It's all biology. I think you talk about it. You normalize it's not a taboo anymore. Yeah, you know, it's funny, as I've gotten older now, like when I was a young guy, I wanted to see how much weight you can stock. And at some point now, I was with the, I was working with my trainer the other day,

Brent, who's been on this show, big fan of yours as well. And he, we got to a point with the weights around like, okay, we're getting up there and it's heavy and I could probably do it, but it's a strain. And I'm like, at this age, why do I need to go,

so far beyond what I think is, you know, like I'm not trying to enter a competition. I'm not trying to get like huge. And if you get hurt, you're out. You're out of commission. Exactly. I would, one thing you could check out would be the blood flow restriction training. You have to use the proper cuffs. You don't just want to turn a kid off. You buy these cuffs. And they, it is so unbelievably painful, but no soreness and you get really dramatic results. Andrew, you're going to have him walking around like an alien with his sauna wool hat and his cuffs and his, his, popping magnesium, N-A-D in his arm. I mean, it's-

Okay, well, rarely do I get involved in a couple disputes, but in this case, what I will say is that the flip side of that is, how old do you? 35, but when you're 55, you're going to be lean, strong, everything working better than it does now. That's my goal, because I had a kid, and the kid, I think, help frame out, it gives you another reason about why you want to be not only around longer,

but in good job. I want to keep up. If you look at, for instance, age-related decreases in testosterone and men. Everyone hears, oh, testosterone is decreasing, sperm counts are decreasing. You know what? If you look at the data, that's true. It's also true that there are men in their 70s and 80s who maintain the testosterone levels of men in their 20s. Why? Consistently, Zone 2 cardio, sun exposure, weight training exposure, health happiness is a huge one. The relationship between the dopamine system and the hormone system.

in women too. You see this now, like that basically health span is extending for some people. If you look at follicle number in women, right? They're women in their 20s and 30s. I do think every woman should get scoped for the follicle count.

They're women who think, oh, I'm in my 20s and 30s, I'm sure I've got plenty of follicles. And then they go in at 35 and they realize they've got two follicles left. There are women in their 40s who have many follicles. Everyone should get scoped.

Everyone, in my opinion, should get blood work done while they're in their 20s, 30s to know where you were at. And so there are a lot of discussions to be had here, but doing the basic behavioral practices consistently is what's going to make you healthy in the long term. And of course, there are instances where people need hormone replacement therapy. Just very briefly, we could do a whole episode on this if you want some time, but

it's very clear that for women, hormone estrogen replacement therapy is best done as women enter menopause or in the middle of menopause, but not, then outcomes are very good. I'm going to call you when I enter menopause. But after women exit menopause, if they wait too long and then do hormone therapy, health outcomes and the situation is worse. Men are now starting to approach hormone therapy. I get a ton of questions about TRT, but the problem, testosterone placement therapy, the problem is guys are starting it in their 20s and 30s.

They're doing it long before they ever need to. I think there's like 800 guys like get his specific TRT protocol. I'm like, I'm sure he's going to do something in depth on this. Well, for years, I mean, so I'm 46. I mean, there are two supplements that I've talked about pretty openly, Tonga Ali for men and women and Fidoja Agrestis. You need to get the right sources and dosages. We've done episodes on this,

so we can go into it some other time or we could hold another conversation. They can be beneficial for me for improving testosterone, but not going on testosterone replacement therapy. Because if people do that, guys, there's no way around it. You're going to shut down sperm production. There are ways, it turns out, I'm going to contradict myself now, to offset that.

People jump to the extremes. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Let's do any guy in their 20s and 30s who's not hypogynadal who's taking testosterone, you are setting yourself up for serious issues. Also mentally it changes your brain. Now women nowadays are starting to take low doses of DHA, very low doses of testosterone. Guys are starting to realize that if they take estrogen blockers, it crushes their libido

and their joints get sore. So there are a lot of things that you know you want to be nuanced about. I always recommend, here's the kind of my general philosophy. Behavioral, excuse me, first, do the right. right things, avoid the wrong things. We talked about a lot of those today. Second, get your nutrition right. That's a highly individual thing, but we talked about some of the general parameters, non-processed foods most of the time, et cetera. Get supplementation right. For some people, that means no supplementation. If you're sleeping great, don't take the sleep stack. If you're sleeping

lousy, try one of the things, but do the behavioral stuff first. If that doesn't work, second and the third. That still doesn't work in the sleep kit that I referred people to earlier. we say, then you might want to try a sleep-related hypnosis protocol, the kind of more heavy, heavy-hitting tools. And then, of course, there's prescription drugs. But what really saddens me is when I see people saying, oh, I can't focus, my kidneys riddle it or my, or they go to modafinil because you will be focused, but you're also causing these other potential negative effects. And you actually, with supplementation and drugs, you don't engage neuroplasticity. You don't change your nervous system. When you do behaviors, you actually change your nervous system

and make it more functional. A drug or a supplement just gives you access to that state, but you are dependent on that thing. So if you're doing cold exposure and breathing and sunlight and all of this throughout the week, yes, it seems like a lot, but again, you can weave these protocols in with one another to avoid them being too time consuming. And you're actually getting better so that when you don't have access to those tools, you can still function really well. And sure, there's a place for prescription drugs, clinical conditions, depression, etc. But that should always be the last resort. Yeah.

And I know we're up on time here, but my personal experience in my personal health journey was like, and I've talked about in the show. First, I kind of cut alcohol and started figuring out, like, I cut alcohol completely and started figuring out, okay, what's the clean way to eat? That was like step one. Then I started focusing on like, what's a natural way to get better sleep? And this is not, like I didn't do all this at once, to your point. I did it like a month on figuring out how to bed sleep.

then like two months on figuring out the workouts. Then after I figured out all that, then I was like, what supplements could enhance, but I didn't just have to jump into to make those things happen. I kind of figured them out first. And now I just use them as additions. And to your point, there's been no need to jump to the more extreme things. But I feel like a lot of people just want the quick fix now. And it works, but it ends up handicapping people somewhat. I think the behavioral tools, people should ease into them. You don't have to do them all at once. But if they want to do them all at once, they'll certainly feel better. And that, you know, the zero-cost tools are always fun to talk about because it's like the only barrier is effort. And yeah, if you're relying on

sleeping pills to fall asleep and modafinil to or riddle in or to be awake, sure, I know a lot of day traders and tech people and people that are doing that, you're going to pay the price. There's no question. There is a better safer alternative. This podcast was one of my favorites. I learned so much. I have so many notes. I wish that we had another two hours. You're welcome back anytime. I think our next episode, we theme on hormones. We covered a lot of ground. Yeah, it seems like you know a lot about that as well. Where can everyone find you pimp yourself out? Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. It's been a long time coming and it's been a real pleasure, sincerely, to meet you both in person and love what you're doing. And I appreciate, oh, and I get a book.

Nice. I don't worry. It's get the fuck out of the sun, but I'm still getting my more. morning sunlight in the morning. Subtitle after you've gotten your morning sunlight. I already wrote it in the book. People get confused about the title. But her point was like a lot of people are baking in the sun. I'm saying don't bake with oil in the sun. Don't lay in a tanning bed. Love it. By the way, great title of the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Love it. And love what you guys are doing generally. Where can people find out more? So we are Huberbin Lab on Instagram. There I teach neuroscience and neuroscience related tools. And on Twitter, also Huberman Lab. That's Twitter, you know, but Instagram mainly. the podcast is the Huberman Lab podcast. And so every Monday we have a long episode, sometimes just

me talking, sometimes talking to an truly expert guest. They are long episodes, sometimes two and a half or three hours long, sometimes less, but we timestamp everything. So for instance, if you go to the episode on Master Your Sleep and you want to just see about the supplements, there they are. If you want to learn more about optimizing testosterone and estrogen, you go there and it, and it'll say, you know, how to use weight training to optimize, there it is. So you don't have to listen to the whole thing, I realize. And then in general, you know, if we have formats on our website, Hubermanlab.com, where people can ask us questions, do some live events now and again. But really it's the podcast, Instagram and Twitter. And listen, guys, if this episode didn't sell you, I mean, it's an incredible podcast. I told you I'm a huge fan, really respect everything you're doing, love the content. And if there is a right way to do a podcast, it's the way you're doing it. Marie Shriver shouted you out too. She's a huge fan of you.

Oh, wow. Well, I'm certainly a fan of hers as well. People ask me how to do a podcast. They come to me and say, how do you start a podcast? I'm like, what the fuck do I know? Just go to Huberman now. I don't know anymore. You clearly know what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. I have a great team and as you do as well.

And again, it's a real pleasure to be here. Thanks so much. Please come back. Wait, don't go. Do you want to win a copy of Get the Fuck Out of the Sun? My book that's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at Target.

All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Andrew Huberman on my latest post. So easy. And someone from the team will drop into your inbox. I hope you guys love this episode. I literally took so many notes. and I think this is one of my favorites. Cheers.