{"id":13428,"date":"2026-07-25T00:13:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-dr-andrew-huberman-peptides-performance-and-protocols-876\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T00:13:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:13:26","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-dr-andrew-huberman-peptides-performance-and-protocols-876","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-dr-andrew-huberman-peptides-performance-and-protocols-876\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Dr. Andrew Huberman \u2014 Peptides, Performance, and Protocols (#876)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/07\/22\/dr-andrew-huberman-protocols\/\">my interview with Dr. Andrew Huberman<\/a>, (IG:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hubermanlab\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@hubermanlab<\/a>), a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he runs the Huberman Lab. Andrew is the author of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Protocols-Operating-Manual-Human-Body\/dp\/1668032147?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><strong><em>Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and the host of the <em>Huberman Lab<\/em> podcast, which became, and remains, the most popular health and science podcast in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/07\/22\/dr-andrew-huberman-protocols\/\">Andrew\u2019s full bio<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/07\/22\/dr-andrew-huberman-protocols\/#:~:text=All%20episodes-,Show%20Notes,-Connect%20with%20Dr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Books, people, tools, and resources mentioned in the interview<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/07\/22\/dr-andrew-huberman-protocols-transcript\/#Andrew-Huberman-Protocols-legal-conditions\">Legal conditions\/copyright information<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Dr. Andrew Huberman \u2014 Peptides, Performance, and Protocols<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/704b2f6c-7362-4586-bf69-093021bc40e6\/embed?type=micro\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional podcast platforms<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/876-dr-andrew-huberman-peptides-performance-and-protocols\/id863897795?i=1000777934996\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/2XdNfsZP2yl9pBimEvQ5zf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebulRlcM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/2031148#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Podcast Addict<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/timferriss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pocket Casts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castbox.fm\/channel\/id1059468?country=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castbox<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLuu6fDad2eJyWPm9dQfuorm2uuYHBZDCB\">YouTube Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/9814f3cc-1dc5-4003-b816-44a8eb6bf666\/the-tim-ferriss-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/podcast\/The-Tim-Ferriss-Show\/B08K58QX5W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Audible<\/a>, or on your favorite podcast platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, why don\u2019t we just do a quick call back,<em> The Dark Wizard<\/em>. This sounds like an Ozzy Osbourne album, but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It\u2019s not. <strong\/><\/p>\n<p>Tim Ferriss: It\u2019s a documentary, and we were chatting about it before we started recording since it\u2019s top of mind. Why don\u2019t you just describe what that\u2019s about because this involves a character that I tracked for a super long time.<br \/><strong><br \/>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Dean Potter.<strong\/><\/p>\n<p>Tim Ferriss: Dean Potter. So what is <em>The Dark Wizard<\/em>? Why has it struck you so?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So I learned about this movie from Andy Stumpf, who\u2019s a former retired Navy SEAL, tier one operator who then set two world records with the Red Bull high performance team doing wing suiting. BASE jumping, wing suiting, whatever you want to call it, the squirrel suits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Squirrel suits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And he told me about this movie, <em>The Dark Wizard<\/em>, which is about Dean Potter, who started off as a climber and then became, people can watch the documentary, and then got into parachuting and then what he called free basing, which was climbing and then jumping off a rock and parachuting and then eventually wing suiting. I won\u2019t give away anymore, but it\u2019s a really interesting four-part series that gets into his mental health challenges, how he was able to funnel, let\u2019s just call them the high dopamine more manic states into incredible feats of performance and then how he balanced out the lows. But the most interesting part about it to me is at the level of something I think about a lot these days, which is energy. We\u2019re born into this world with a certain amount of energy and we think about it as time and longevity, but there are people that seem to, I don\u2019t want to give anything away here about the movie, but there are people that seem to have more of this thing that we call energy and when they\u2019re able to focus it, they take performance to just outrageously high levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And you see how the energy folds back on him and almost destroys him at times, and also times when he\u2019s somehow able to harness it and put it to these incredible feats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the most important thing about the film is he talks about and he demonstrates through the activities I talked about before, wing suiting, et cetera, he demonstrates how when you are in competition with other people, it\u2019s a misuse of the energy that can harm you, but when you are seeking, what he calls just seeking beauty, like really trying to chase the feeling, the pure experience of taking that energy and putting it into something that you love, that\u2019s when the really impressive feats land and they move you forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there does seem to be something almost spiritual about whether or not we\u2019re funneling energy into things that really reflect us at our best, what he calls funneling into beauty, versus competition and competition it turns out is what destroys people. And everyone will say, \u201cNo, no, no. It\u2019s actually what allows you to reach a higher and higher bar.\u201d But if you watch all four episodes, you realize, no, that\u2019s an illusion. And when you get caught in that, you\u2019re limiting your output. You\u2019re limiting your performance. It also has multiple cameos by the great Alex Honnold, and their competition is extremely interesting. I\u2019ll leave it at that. It\u2019s a long teaser, but it\u2019s a real insight into human psychology and energy, which is something, again, I\u2019m just obsessed with because ultimately it\u2019s where we place our efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Foundational.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>That\u2019s all we\u2019ve got. That\u2019s all we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And Dean Potter, also, fascinating character. I\u2019m going to watch this and if people have enjoyed slack lining, he helped popularize slack lining, certainly as cross-training for climbing, but overall, and I can\u2019t help but mention the incredible Laird Hamilton also because we\u2019re sitting here in Malibu. So if anybody\u2019s ever done standup paddleboarding, eFoiling. Fewer people have done tow-in surfing certainly, but people should watch, I think it\u2019s <em>Riding Giants <\/em>about their early chapters of Laird. Standup paddleboarding goes way back, probably thousands of years, but he certainly helped to repopularize it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are going to talk about all sorts of frontier topics. We\u2019re going to talk about perhaps some revisions. Updates maybe a better way to put it. And I\u2019m just going to hop into this very long list that we will almost certainly not complete, but let\u2019s hop into one that is of personal interest to me and I want to hear how this experience informed your training.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dorian Yates. So I have interviewed Dorian, but I\u2019ve never met him. You had the chance to train with Dorian. He is multiple time Mr. Olympia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Six, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Six times. He was legendary not only for his accomplishments in bodybuilding, but also for, in the eyes of many, the bizarreness of his training methods, which in contrast to many were pretty minimalist in certain respects. So could you just speak to the experience of training with Dorian and what you took away from that in terms of application to your own training?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I\u2019ve had the honor and pleasure and pain of training with Dorian Yates once here in Los Angeles. We did a back workout, back and rear delts workout. And then I just came back from Marbella, Spain, where we trained legs together, and it\u2019s the sorest I\u2019ve ever been. And I should say the science caught up to Dorian. What Dorian did to train for Mr. Olympia and what Mike Mentzer, who I\u2019ll explain in a moment, were proponents of is now very well-supported by the peer-reviewed data. And a bunch of physio folks are probably jumping out of their seats going, \u201cNo, no, you don\u2019t have to go to failure beyond failure, and you actually need more sets.\u201d But if you look at their training, which was essentially a couple of warmups, a light set to just familiarize yourself with a movement, a medium set, maybe like 50% of what you would use on your work set, work set somewhere between five and 12 repetitions typically, and then maybe a third warmup for just a couple of reps, kind of practice sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then Mentzer, Mike Mentzer, was a big proponent of one all outset to failure. Okay. Turns out that\u2019s probably not enough for most people to stimulate hypertrophy and strength increases because it demands so much focus, intensity, and effort. There\u2019s a kind of a systemic neural fatigue to it and a lot of people just can\u2019t contract the muscles with enough focus and intensity for one set to absolute failure to work. Dorian basically is more proponent of two sets per exercise, maybe two or three exercises per major body part, major body part being quads, not legs, right? So training with Dorian essentially consists of what I just described, a couple of warmups, two all out sets to failure, or one set and then some assisted reps or a drop set or a rest pause where you rest after failure and then do a couple more reps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, what\u2019s unique about that training is you feel very tired at the end of a workout, but a couple hours later you\u2019re fine. And indeed, if you do it right, you get stronger every single workout with the caveat, and Dorian made this clear to me, that about every six or eight weeks or so you need to come off the gas pedal a bit and just stay out of the gym for a week or you do a kind of more moderate week. Now, what Mentzer, and let\u2019s just stick with what Dorian said, because let\u2019s call it low-ish volume, high intensity. What he\u2019s a proponent of was heresy back in the day. Certainly the opposite extreme would be like the Schwarzenegger two hours, twice a day type workouts. And then people will say, \u201cWell, Dorian was using loads of steroids and growth hormone, et cetera.\u201d The scientist in me will, in no attempt to defend him, will just accurately say, \u201cWhat\u2019s the one thing that he was doing differently?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. That was par for the course, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>That\u2019s the key. Everyone was and is taking some testosterone and other anabolics and androgenics and some were taking growth hormone. But the point is, and at the top level, all of those guys have incredible genetics, long muscle bellies. What makes Dorian, even now at 65, he carries a ton of muscle mass. He\u2019s doing a lot of biking, he\u2019s doing functional training, he\u2019s doing a lot of other things, but just the sheer density of muscle that he carries speaks to his genetics and the amount of training.<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019ve been doing for years is the same split. Three days a week, one day legs including calves, rest a day or two, train chest and back, rest a day, shoulders and arms, and also some neck training because I didn\u2019t wrestle, and neck is important to train, especially for guys, otherwise it looks like the wrong head is on the body. And also as the upper spine, it\u2019s important for shoulder stability, et cetera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that split, most people say, \u201cWell, that doesn\u2019t square with the science. What does the science say?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The science says, and this is Brad Schoenfeld\u2019s work and other people\u2019s work, which is fantastic, which is when you stimulate a muscle to grow, you have about 48 to 72 hours in which there\u2019s protein synthesis after the training. So the logic says, well, logically speaking, you would say, \u201cOkay, well, then train every muscle group three times a week or twice a week.\u201d The problem is that when you do that, you\u2019re not taking into account the other things that you might be doing. Like I run three times a week, one long slow run for about 60 minutes, one high intensity interval type training, like sprint for 30 seconds on the assault bike, rest for 30 seconds, then just repeat that six to eight times, right? Kind of a max heart rate training and then maybe one moderate session of like 20 or 30 minutes of running or biking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019re doing those other things, you have to take that into account. And so what ends up happening if you do this split of training your legs, taking a day off, then the next day doing some sort of chest back workout, the next day running for 30 minutes. Now your legs, if you train them properly, are still probably a little bit sore.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, well, it\u2019s not going to stimulate hypertrophy, but if then you do a Airdyne bike high intensity workout, you\u2019re getting some stimulus to your legs. It\u2019s enough to carry you to the next week. So in reality, this arrangement of three times per week of resistance training, three times a week of cardio, you\u2019re training everything directly once a week and indirectly a second time and you\u2019re getting a lot of cardio.<\/p>\n<p>Because all these studies have hypertrophy and strength training, it\u2019s on a background typically of not doing any cardio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so when I look at what the science says, of course people are saying, \u201cOh, anywhere from 10 to 20 work sets per week,\u201d that to maximize hypertrophy. Okay, 10 sets of quads per week distributed into two or three different sessions, plus I\u2019m supposed to sprint outside or on the Airdyne bike, plus I\u2019m supposed to do a long run? All of a sudden you run into, you have collisions all over the place. So turns out that for years I was doing this split, and then when I talked to Dorian, he\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s more or less what I did when\u2014\u201d He split things up into a four-day split, wasn\u2019t doing quite as much cardio. He\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, it makes perfect sense. Once directly high intensity, low-ish volume. Once indirectly.\u201d Like when you train your chest and back, you\u2019re hitting your arms and then you train your arms directly, so it\u2019s twice a week. When you do the Airdyne bike, there\u2019s some stimulus of like your lats and pushing and pulling. Again, it\u2019s not for hypertrophy, but it gets you to the next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what I\u2019ve found from training with Dorian is you think you\u2019re training to failure, you\u2019re not training to failure. And this is the other piece. People will say, \u201cOh, the data say two or three sets taken like one or two reps in reserve.\u201d Yeah, it\u2019s true. You can get a lot of hypertrophy and strength increases doing that. Maybe it\u2019s less taxing on the nervous system. But what is failure? Like if somebody really put a gun to your head and said, \u201cCurl that bar one more time or I\u2019m going to kill your family,\u201d you\u2019d curl the bar. Now it\u2019s not pleasant nor is it appropriate to think that way in the gym and there are probably some guys thinking that way in the gym. It\u2019s just impossible to generate that kind of mental intensity. So you go, \u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you just step back, the way Dorian is training now, the way he basically trained for the Olympia, six Olympia wins, is you train each body part directly once per week, it gets hit indirectly a second time per week, you give it plenty of rest, you\u2019re doing four to eight sets per body part, two to three exercises per body part, so you\u2019re splitting up those work sets. Yeah, it all kind of works out. And so this is the big revision for me is if you just look at the science, you\u2019d say, \u201cOkay, 10 to 20 sets, more volume of these sets almost to failure or even to failure is maximizing hypertrophy.\u201d Yet if you\u2019re doing curls and leg extensions for a study, but what about all the other stuff?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, for sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Okay. So that\u2019s the gist of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> If you want to look back at this approach to training, I mean, there are a lot of examples, but you can go back to Arthur Jones, then Mike Mentzer, and then of course you have Dorian, <em>Blood and Guts<\/em>. I remember having that black and white book that describes some of the training. And for those who may doubt the efficacy of this type of, let\u2019s just call it short duration, because you can do what Dorian recommended. The workouts can be quite a bit shorter, and in some cases\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And with the warmup, it ends up being, you do a couple minutes on the bike, you do your warm up sets. By the time you get to the second or third exercise for a given body part, you\u2019re only doing one warmup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And what I would say is you can look at, now this is somewhat of a complicated case study, but like Casey Viator with Arthur Jones, crazy example. There\u2019s some sort of muscle memory, which we won\u2019t get into right now, that enabled a lot of those gains. But suffice to say this type of minimalist training can be applied in a lot of places and I think according to many competitive powerlifters, the best powerlifter of all time, Ed Coan, also pretty similar recovery schedule, right? And very interestingly similar in terms of overlap with Dorian Yates. So what does your split look like now?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So the split I follow now is essentially the same one I\u2019ve always followed and it is\u2014I want to be clear why I\u2019m saying Monday or Tuesday, because there needs to be flexibility in one schedule, too. This is important. So Monday or Tuesday, I train my legs. Calves, hamstrings, quads, maybe some direct glute training, but probably not. A couple warmups, two to three, maybe, but usually just two hard sets to failure. If I have a training partner, there may be some assisted reps. So quads would be two working sets of leg extensions. I\u2019ll leave out the warmups. Two to three, because I need a bit more there, lying hamstring curls to failure. Then belt squat, my favorite movement. I actually bought a belt squat machine because you don\u2019t have to load the shoulders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Which machine do you like?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I use the Pit Shark.<\/p>\n<p>And Rogue\u2019s got now one that\u2019s kind of more of a fan based one and there are a bunch of\u2014it\u2019s a lot of fun to go on Instagram and some of the gym equipment assessment accounts is a whole world. Sorinex has one. There are all sorts of great ones out there. I bought the Pit Shark.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019ll reinforce the belt squat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Love the belt squat. It takes a little bit getting used to because some people feel as if it\u2019s like jamming into their hips or something. You can put a towel there if you need to. I mean, all the Westside Barbell guys would talk about belt squat. They would load it up. You can actually march with it to build all sorts of stabilizing muscles. I mean, that\u2019s an incredible cardio workout. You just put a couple plates on each side and you just march, lifting your knees, and after like a minute you\u2019re like, \u201cThere\u2019s no way I can continue.\u201d That\u2019s a great workout. But I end up doing leg extensions, leg curls, then belt squat, and then I may throw in a couple work sets of hack squat and that\u2019s it. And that\u2019s Monday or Tuesday. The day after legs is always a rest day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you train legs properly, the next day should be a rest day. You should need it. Ideally, I would do sauna and cold that day. These days I haven\u2019t had time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Systemically, you have to ask yourself, am I systemically exhausted? Did my nervous system take enough of an ass beating on that Monday or Tuesday that I need two days off after legs? And if it was very, very intense, then I\u2019ll do some sort of 20- or 30-minute cardio. Typically, it\u2019s a run, not an all out run, not a jog, just somewhere in between. Probably in the zone, let\u2019s just call it zone three-ish, zone three, four. Okay? You\u2019re not sucking for air, but it\u2019s not a sprint workout. It\u2019s not zone two. And then I\u2019ll do a push pull. I\u2019ll do chest and back workout and neck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What do you use for neck?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I have a 4-way neck machine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You do?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Which brand do you use?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Hammer Strength.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Hammer Strength.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And again, the reason I\u2019m asking this guys is not to plug particular manufacturers. It\u2019s because the physics and the geometry and so on really matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It really matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Especially in my experience with something that has injury potential, I have a 4-way neck machine also.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I do it very, very slowly myself. Don\u2019t overdo it. If you\u2019ve never trained neck, do not rush into high velocity stuff. But that\u2019s why I was asking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Neck is very important. I\u2019ll talk about specifically what I\u2019ll do if I don\u2019t have access to that. But some people will be like, \u201cChest and back same day, and rear delts?\u201d Yeah. I think of it as like a torso workout because I\u2019m not a bodybuilder. I\u2019m interested in posture. I\u2019m interested in strength, and I essentially do some sort of pushing movement like a low incline press and then some sort of fly type movement. Although sometimes I\u2019ll just do low incline bench press for, so couple warmups, two or three warmups, two or three work sets, in the failing somewhere between five and 12 repetitions. And then dips, weighted dips. Big believer in these. I think it\u2019s like an upper body squat, whatever that means. Weighted dips typically with a weight vest and it looks ridiculous, but the chains are great if you can throw those on, because you can toss one off and then keep going if you want to keep going.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whereas if you got a weight hanging between your legs, which always just feels weird to me anyway, you\u2019re like waddling around the gym, it\u2019s clanking into your ankles. I\u2019ll do some sort of dip and then I\u2019ll do some sort of row for the back, typically like a low row or a dumbbell row, one arm dumbbell row and then some sort of chinning movement. Although I put the chins first because we\u2019ve all got this thing of how many can I do. And I recently bought a Nautilus pullover machine based on the training with Dorian and it\u2019s from 1976 and it\u2019s one of only two that still exist and there\u2019s a whole, it\u2019s kind of like some guys like muscle cars, I like old school strength training equipment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Dorian loves his pullovers. Just like Arthur Jones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And by the way, if you\u2019re rowing heavy and you\u2019re doing these things, you\u2019re getting some forearm training, but then I\u2019ll do the neck training and I\u2019ll either use the 4-way neck machine or I\u2019ll do\u2014Jeff Cavaliere from Athlean-X has a great video on how to train with a plate. You wrap it in\u2014a trained neck with a plate and a bench so you could do that anywhere. You wrap it in a towel, you lie on your side and you\u2019re just\u2014you have to be careful about closing the chain so you\u2019ve got one leg down and you\u2019ve got a hand down on the ground. The video describes it, and maybe we could put a link to it.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that\u2019s very important I learned about training neck is you need to nasal breathe the whole time, have your tongue on the roof of your mouth and make sure that you\u2019re not sticking your chin out at any point while you\u2019re bending it to the side because then you start getting clicking in your jaw and my spinal surgeon friends tell me that it\u2019s a great way to slip a disc in your neck.<\/p>\n<p>The neck aesthetically, it\u2019s always weird when dudes are talking about aesthetics, but these days because of the looks maxing thing and all that, it seems to be like more\u2014but there\u2019s something actually very important in neck training\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re not hammering your cheekbones?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>No, I\u2019m definitely not hammering my cheekbones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Come on, Andrew.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Nope, not hammering my cheekbones, not taking\u2014I mean, that is such a wild thing. Yeah. No, no, no. But there is something interesting. So from a strength and stability standpoint, training one\u2019s neck is really important because it\u2019s the upper spine, and I do think it\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve never had any shoulder issues and I\u2019ve got long arms and everything points to the fact that I should have rotator cuff issues. I don\u2019t do any direct rotator cuff work. I think it\u2019s because I started training my neck a long time ago and aesthetically, like you have this, this is a great opportunity to point out just how perfectly constructed you are, Tim Ferriss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, thank you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>You train your neck. Really, if you look head on at a male face, if the neck sort of arrives right at the sort of like outer, right more or less, right, plus or minus a few, whatever, millimeters, and more or less at the outer jaw, the outermost point of the jaw, like below the ears, like touching there, you\u2019ll notice like it looks kind of right. When somebody is really wide and their neck is not at that point, it looks like the wrong head was placed on a body.<\/p>\n<p>Then you see Laird Hamilton and you realize like this dude just has a really big neck, but it\u2019s appropriate for his body structure.<\/p>\n<p>Then after the neck, I\u2019ll do, I don\u2019t know, three sets or two work sets per side, although you don\u2019t train neck the same way, like to forced reps and all that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I\u2019ll do some core work. The core work that I\u2019m a big fan of, because you also get some forearm work in, is I\u2019ll hang from a bar and I\u2019ll do some L sits, and if I\u2019ve been doing them a lot lately, I\u2019ll do some pikes. Five sets of five, piking my ankles up to my hands, and then slow on the descent and then into an L sit if I can, and I\u2019ll do maybe three or five sets depending, and then lower back work. I have a 45 degree ankle hyperextension and I\u2019m not taking that to failure. The low back thing is really important. I\u2019ve found that and there are a lot of data out there that if you can strengthen the spinal erectors, your posture is better, you\u2019re more injury resistant. But that whole workout takes an hour tops. The next day is the high intensity cardio day, just max heart rate. These days I get on an Airdyne bike. I would say for this for people, it\u2019s whatever you can do without getting hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So question for you on the Airdyne.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, I guess probably an AssaultBike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>AssaultBike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>This is a digression so I won\u2019t indulge just too far, but to figure out why the AssaultBike worked and caught on where the Airdyne did not, right? You can look at footage from Dan Gable, legendary wrestler working out on Airdyne, but it never really spread until the AssaultBike reformatted it, improved it, in some ways. My question for you on that real quick, for people who don\u2019t know, you\u2019re using your arms on these isolateral, movable handles that power this fan. So you can pedal and use your arms, one or the other or both. And I find that my upper body fatigues a lot faster than my lower body. If I\u2019m trying to do, let\u2019s say like a Norwegian 4\u00d74 or something like that, like four minutes on, three minutes off or four minutes on, four minutes off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do you find that not to be the case for yourself or how do you approach it? Because I\u2019ve wanted to use the AssaultBike. It\u2019s now easier to find an AssaultBike in say a hotel gym for me than a stationary bike that fits well otherwise. How do you approach that?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Well, the naming piece is interesting and maybe we get into this at some point deeper in the discussion, but naming is very important and it\u2019s not just important in health and fitness and this kind of thing. It\u2019s actually very important in science. And I\u2019m a student of science as a field, not just the field of neuroscience in terms of the facts, but also you look at the culture of a scientific field. Oftentimes, the naming is what carries a field forward very quickly. And you go, \u201cHow can that be? Aren\u2019t these scientists? Shouldn\u2019t they just be focused on the data?\u201d Nomenclature is important because if more people are doing something because they can talk about it to more people using the same language, it tends to accelerate a field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So also AssaultBike sounds cool. Stationary bike feels like you\u2019re just peddling. The AssaultBike is interesting because I also, I get like a lot of lat work from it. Keep in mind, the day before I trained my chest and back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No, exactly. That\u2019s why I\u2019m asking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So it ends up being a second stimulus. It\u2019s not a hypertrophy workout, but you end up feeling like almost like a pump type thing if you do it right. I can\u2019t do more than 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off without experiencing what you experienced, which is that my legs just have all this gas and my arms, they can just keep going. It all transfers to the upper body. So Norwegian 4\u00d74 on the AssaultBike just sounds like torture to me. This workout, if I can, I\u2019ll get outside and sprint. And you could do it on a rower, you could sprint. I think it\u2019s just important because it\u2019s a near all out or all out workout, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, or maybe you jog a couple laps and then you do a couple\u2014you do a 400 on the track and then walk a lap and then do a 400.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever you do for this workout, you can come up with any number of different variations. It\u2019s got to be something where you can apply max effort and not get hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then the next day is shoulders arms. You do some sort of pressing. I\u2019m not big on lateral raises. Some sort of press for the shoulders, couple work sets of bicep curls, couple incline curls, some hammer curls of overhead tricep extension for the long head, couple work sets, some bench dips.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there you go, like bench dips again. So now you\u2019re getting a little bit of other stuff working even though it\u2019s not an all out chest and back workout.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then the next day, which is typically on a Sunday, I\u2019ll do some long, slow movement ideally outside.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe it\u2019s a walk and a hike with my girlfriend. Maybe it\u2019s I\u2019m rucking and listening to a podcast if I\u2019m alone. Maybe I\u2019m jogging in the sand. It could be a long bike ride. Just something like\u2014there\u2019s something so nice to starting the week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Jogging in the sand sounds miserable\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, it\u2019s slow. It\u2019s a slow plod. You\u2019re a mule. I like to think of like you\u2019re kind of a mule or I\u2019m a mule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s going to be my clip for the teaser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>You\u2019re the mule?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m a mule. No, I\u2019m kidding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Cool. No, that works. That works for me. And the real hard part about that workout is not going faster. It\u2019s pretty easy to jog and then walk, jog and then walk. It\u2019s probably beneficial. But that workout is as much for the mental stimulation, but it\u2019s also, there\u2019s something so nice about going into the work week. Maybe it lands on a Monday. I don\u2019t know. But typically for me, it lands on a Sunday because there\u2019s something so nice about going to the work week, having spent as much time as possible moving outdoors the day before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I do this and it ends up being six workouts a week, but some are very, very short. None of the resistance training stuff is terribly long. You\u2019re done in an hour or so unless you\u2019re waiting for equipment. At 50, I\u2019m continuing to get stronger, I\u2019m not\u2014outrageously so. And it just works. It just works and it\u2019s worked for everyone that I know. Now one key thing and a lot of people will, what I call they\u2019ll kind of geek this and they won\u2019t do compound movements. You can\u2019t do lateral raises and I do some rear delt flys on the whatever, one or the other either chest and back day or the shoulders and arms day. You need that for shoulder posturally, aesthetically, et cetera. But people will think, \u201cOh, I can do leg extensions, leg curls to failure once a week.\u201d No, you\u2019re also hack squatting and belt squatting or hack squatting and front squatting to failure for a couple sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where that\u2019s intense and you need to do the compound movements. There\u2019s no world where you can just do isolation movements this way. And that\u2019s the thing that sometimes gets forgotten in the Yates-style training. He was doing a lot of compound movements and he\u2019s still a proponent of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, let\u2019s hop around and we may come back to training. We spoke some time ago about psychedelics with a focus on MDMA and it seems like you may have some revised views, maybe a few caveats. I would be interested to hear your current thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman:<\/strong> So this is an area you\u2019ve spoken about and thought about pretty extensively, or as I\u2019m more of a newbie. As we talked about last time in case people didn\u2019t hear that conversation, growing up, I made the mistake. It was truly a mistake of taking some psychedelics at a very young age, \u201cRecreationally.\u201d LSD, psilocybin, not giving any thought to what the long-term consequences might be. Fortunately, I didn\u2019t feel any long-term consequences, but I had enough bad trips, meaning one, Robin Carhart-Harris would say, \u201cYou can\u2019t have a bad trip.\u201d You can have a bad trip, Robin. I\u2019ve had one. It sucks. You\u2019re in the pit for hours and hours. There\u2019s no guide there if you\u2019re doing it recreationally as a teen. The brain is hyperplastic. It made me very, very cautious, almost paranoid about psychedelics for many, many years. Then also the last time we spoke, I talked about how in an effort to resolve what I felt were some longstanding psychological traumas. I did clinically-supported MDMA. Standard MAPS protocol, right? I forget the milligram dosage, maybe take like\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Probably 125, something like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Sometimes there\u2019s a booster about 90 minutes in, you have someone there, you\u2019re doing talk therapy before, during, and after tremendously helpful to be able to feel my feelings, to be able to recognize what a whole body feeling was about. I mean, there was never the experience for me of wanting to dance or have sex while I was on it. It was like, no, there was some shaking. There was a little bit of that, but it was a very\u2014it\u2019s an empathogen. I think as you know, it\u2019s not a psychedelic, it\u2019s technically empathogen and raises both dopamine and serotonin simultaneously, which is very unusual for any compound to do and raises oxytocin quite dramatically. The data actually say the empathogenic effect of MDMA is not due to oxytocin through a kind of good control where you just give oxytocin and you don\u2019t get the same clinical effects, but you could argue the cocktail effect, the synergy might be important.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I did that a few times. I think it was a total of four times separated by a number of months or a year, clinically supported.<\/p>\n<p>In any event, after a period of doing that, I took a break and on the suggestion of the same clinical group decided to partake in a psilocybin experiment and it was high dose psilocybin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, psilocybin, as you know, leads to, I think in the words of our friend, Paul Conti, it almost recedes the waterline on the unconscious mind. So what I found in psilocybin was because my brain often thinks in analogies, it\u2019s just how I structure my thinking, it\u2019s reflexive for me off psilocybin. Almost everything that came to me in those sessions was out of symbolic representation analogies. For somebody else who represents their world not that way, maybe musically or through somatic experience, it\u2019s likely that, from my understanding, that they will experience insights through those same kind of representations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I found from psilocybin work was it was exquisite at revealing to me the structure of my thinking and the ways that some of the patterns in my life that were not serving me well, how they were structured. It was like, oh, coming out of it there\u2019s a like, wow, like there\u2019s this form of self-seduction that I do, which takes actually eight forms, which look the following way in my life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can be seduced by the enchantment of some sort of promise of a future outcome that\u2019s not realistic. And you can see that. I\u2019m just kind of giving one example. And once you see that, you can\u2019t unsee it. And that for me was an incredible experience. I do think it was important to keep a journal afterwards, to take notes while off the drug. And for me, that was very, very helpful at allowing me to understand the structure of my thinking, both for things that serve me and don\u2019t serve me. I will say, and this is getting a little\u2014well, as long as people are doing like live streams of taking psychedelics, I feel on very solid ground, but who knows?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, just wait until the second half of this conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don\u2019t want anyone to run out and take these things without clinical support. There are a number of people who shouldn\u2019t be taking them and all the usual caveats apply, young people, et cetera, but the real, whoa, on session type rewiring, which was the hardest work I\u2019ve ever done, having done lots and lots of therapy, but the hardest work I\u2019ve ever done was to take MDMA and then a couple hours later, take a high dose of psilocybin. And I\u2019ve only done that twice. Now, the reason it was such\u2014by the way, if I ever try and run for public office, any mistakes I make, they\u2019ll attribute to this. By the way, I\u2019ve seen that publicly, but I\u2019m going to make it very clear right now. Not only am I not going to run for office, I\u2019m running from office. There\u2019s been some speculation. But the interesting thing was no two days later drop, which you do experience with MDMA. I just did not experience that if I took psilocybin with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Remarkable. Had some of my best workouts, work weeks, et cetera. I was like, \u201cOh, wow, that can be avoided through this thing.\u201d But what was remarkable is on MDMA as an empathogen, you feel very good about most anything you focus on. You can find the piece in it. You can find the love in it. It could be this yerba mate, which I happen to love, but you would really love\u2014that\u2019s the danger, right? You can get pulled into these force fields of thinking something\u2019s really important that might not be that important when the session is over. That\u2019s why I think it\u2019s very important to have a trained guide with you, but there\u2019s the drop.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Psilocybin for me was a very dark and harrowing experience, a lot of purging, a lot of vomiting about halfway through. These weren\u2019t enormous doses. They weren\u2019t small either. It was four to five grams, but this\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Just to be clear for folks, of dried, Psilocybe mushrooms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So for me, it was terrifying to be on psilocybin alone. It was extremely difficult and the combination of the two, it was like having my really good friend Rob Mohr in there with me going, \u201cYou can do this.\u201d Now, Rob wasn\u2019t in there, so I\u2019m just half joking because he\u2019s here in the room with us now, but it was like, I can do this. I can lean into the hardest work. I\u2019m going to give an example so it\u2019s not too vague.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019d spent a fair amount of time thinking about some of the harder things that had happened in my childhood, in my life, some of which were self-inflicted, some of which were not self-inflicted. And I\u2019d come to peace about those through the work I described, standard psychotherapy, a lot of journaling, time, some MDMA, psilocybin, those separately. Taking them together, I had this voice in my head that was like, \u201cIt\u2019s time to do the real work.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh, goodness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I said out loud, \u201cI thought we\u2019re just going to listen to Grateful Dead today.\u201d And the person helping me was like, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not how this works. You know that.\u201d And I\u2019m thinking, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this.\u201d And I don\u2019t even know what this is. I just know there\u2019s something there that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Something foreboding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, shit.\u201d And I think it is important for people to understand this because it can be very, very scary and you feel it coming at you like a storm and you can push it away. I could have spent the entire time listening to The Grateful Dead, not a huge Grateful Dead fan, but people have encouraged me to listen to it. So I\u2019ve been doing it and I like it, but I could have done that, but I didn\u2019t. Instead, I was like, okay, with those two compounds in me, I was like, \u201cI can do this. I\u2019ve got myself held. I\u2019m my own friend. That\u2019s the empathogen. I can do this.\u201d It wasn\u2019t this like, \u201cAll right, let\u2019s go. Let\u2019s fight.\u201d And that session took me through a brutally hard voyage of thinking about all the things that didn\u2019t happen, all the things that I would wish had happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That I was in no position to make happen for myself. Heavy, gnarly. And coming through it, it was the perfect thing because I was like, \u201cThose are the things I know I can create now.\u201d There is no way, and this is why I feel it\u2019s important to talk about these compounds. There is no way whatsoever that a therapist was going to sit down and go, \u201cHey, what\u2019s ever on your mind today? Let\u2019s talk about what didn\u2019t happen.\u201d No one\u2019s ever done that for me. And if they had, there\u2019s no way that I would have been in the full emotional experience of the lack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Or necessarily had access to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Or had access to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So I give that as an example. It\u2019s certainly not what everyone would experience, but I\u2019d never thought about the problem of what hadn\u2019t happened as a viable option to explore. It\u2019s so obvious now, but then the outcome of this brutally hard session was beautiful. No additional drug, nothing for\u2014and it stayed with me. This was well over a year ago and I thought, \u201cThis is awesome. I can create these things. I know exactly what to aim for.\u201d And I started to make steps in my life steering the ship in those directions and not surprisingly it\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, I can do this. I can do these things. I need some practice.\u201d And so I think that the medicines as we think of them are immensely powerful, immensely precarious. You need the support. I\u2019ve been told in these sessions, \u201cHey, maybe we don\u2019t go there. You don\u2019t go there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That feels like a repeat. You need someone to help guide you. These are not to be used recreationally in my opinion, at least not for folks like me. I\u2019m just not interested in that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>But the lessons I learned is the following. Neuroplasticity is the goal directed toward something that oftentimes we can\u2019t identify through standard therapy. Like you would say, \u201cOh, I\u2019m trying to resolve my traumas.\u201d That\u2019s a sentence. If you can\u2019t know exactly what the thing was, or even if you can, or the things that happened, what about the things that didn\u2019t happen? It just never would\u2019ve occurred to me. So it revealed both the thing that needed work and allowed me to do a lot of the work in real time and spit me out at the other end, which is how it felt. I wasn\u2019t cratered coming out the other end. I was like, \u201cOoh, that was an ass-kicking of a whole other level.\u201d And with a clear mission in mind of what to do in my daily life that has served me very, very well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also reminded me that we seem to have this one compound type view and I\u2019m not suggesting that polypharmacology is the way, but it turned out in this case, was the appropriate tool for me. And it\u2019s also a reminder that combined pharmacology with brain machine interface and stimulation. Combining ketamine therapy with TMS. I\u2019ve not done ketamine nor TMS, but I think we are entering a really exciting new time where we\u2019re going to be able to amplify the effects of machines and drugs, let\u2019s call them what they are. It\u2019s pharmacology, but drugs, that they can synergize in ways that are more directed, but ultimately that the directives in life are what matter. Do I feel better? What am I doing on a daily basis that\u2019s serving me? If the anterior mid-cingulate cortex or the posterior insula gets 10% thicker, great. But if you\u2019re not making better decisions, frankly, who gives a shit?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right, right. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So ultimately, the everyday outcomes, the clinical outcomes and everyday outcomes are what really matter. Brain imaging is important too, of course. So the experience with these compounds, I will also say left me in a place where I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m feeling pretty good right now.\u201d I feel really good in fact. I don\u2019t feel \u201ccalled\u201d to it again right now. Maybe I will at some point. I have not, for instance, I\u2019ve never done ayahuasca. There seems to be this resurgence of the one shot theory in Silicon Valley, that there are these CEOs or company founders rather who will take ayahuasca and then quit the company or something. And I made the argument to Marc Andreessen like, \u201cWell, maybe they\u2019re happier.\u201d And he made the argument quite astutely as pretty much everything Marc says is he said, \u201cYeah, but as an investor, that\u2019s not what I\u2019m looking for.\u201d And I go, \u201cWell, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For sure. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>But from a life satisfaction point, maybe yes. I think it depends on what your incentive structure is. And so I am very excited about plasticity tools, whether or not it\u2019s talk therapy combined with a brain stimulation device that\u2019s invasive or noninvasive or a vagal stimulation device. Those are getting better and better all the time. Whether or not it\u2019s an empathogen and psilocybin high dose with therapeutic support or it\u2019s daily microdosing for seven days with an undetectable subjective effect where you\u2019re just like, \u201cI feel fine. I feel normal.\u201d But you\u2019re doing a bunch of hard things and suddenly your brain is shifting more quickly. I think this is where the field needs to go enough with it \u201copens plasticity.\u201d That\u2019s a general statement, not about psychedelics, but includes psychedelics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Let me chime in here. This is good terrain. So I would say a couple of things that might be helpful for folks or interesting just to bat around. So the first I would say is that when you induce plasticity, let\u2019s just explore that within the context of psychedelics and I\u2019m going to use some pretty primitive analogies here, but if you\u2019re heating up the clay, that doesn\u2019t immediately mean that in that window of plasticity or after that, you\u2019re going to turn out better than you were before. You have to be very cautious about how you reshape the clay once you induce that plasticity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Well put. Totally agree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I\u2019d suggest people check out G\u00fcl D\u00f6len. She\u2019s at UC Berkeley. She\u2019s looked at critical periods and the reopening of critical periods after psychedelics. She\u2019s focused a lot on MDMA but also is exploring ibogaine among other things. And that\u2019s part of the reason why historically if you talk to facilitators who have literally supervised thousands of sessions, more common in like the neo-shamanic kind of Northern California context for simplicity than the indigenous, but the two to three weeks following has always been viewed as this golden window for reformatting your behavior and your patterns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it turns out that modern science, Gul\u2019s research being one good example of it reinforces this. So it\u2019s not just taking the medicine in the form of a pill, a potion, whatever it might be. It\u2019s actually, that is a catalyst that opens a period of time during which the work needs to be done. So that\u2019s part number one. I would say that your experience also with the hippie flipping, so the MDMA plus psilocybin, or in this case, Psilocybe mushrooms, I would say blunting or eliminating the, let\u2019s just call it energetic hangover MDMA, super typical. I don\u2019t generally\u2014well, not that I\u2019m doing this at all, obviously for legal purposes, but let\u2019s just say hypothetically, that\u2019s part of the reason why some people will format say a weekend where you have breathwork, let\u2019s just say as a lead in, then empathogen, and then the next day, something that is more, and this term is controversial, but the classical psychedelic. Again for simplicity, let\u2019s just call it like psilocybin, LSD, whatever it might be, also tends to reduce that potential for the energetic hangover, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that\u2019s pretty common. People can check out also Transcend Therapeutics that just got acquired or at least the majority was purchased who have been commercializing methylone, which is a very, very interesting compound. It\u2019s like the shorter acting softer cousin of MDMA, much less body load, very, very interesting compound. And what they did, which was very smart and I\u2019m not saying MAPS\/Lykos, whatever the current name is, wasn\u2019t smart, but one of the problems that MDMA ran into is that it was coupled with psychotherapy and the FDA does not know how to regulate psychotherapy, that they don\u2019t know how to standardize or think of as standardized. And so what Transcend did is they just completely separated the two and actually removed the psychotherapy completely and said, \u201cHow do people do with methylone, period?\u201d That\u2019s it. And they\u2019ve done incredibly well, which is reflected in the acquisition. Really interesting compound, methylone like\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Methylone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Interesting. I wasn\u2019t aware of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. I think these are very interesting compounds and I used to have this view like, \u201cOh, psychedelic\u2014\u201d You\u2019re increasing neuro modulators. SSRIs will do that too, differently and clearly a different experience. Actually, I\u2019ve not taken SSRIs. I\u2019m trying to think, have I ever taken an SSRI?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Have you ever taken Trazodone? It\u2019s not technically an SSRI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>No, no. No, I haven\u2019t. I think there\u2019s so much important work to be done here and I will say, huge hat tip to you. You\u2019ve been ushering this forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>[inaudible 01:11:42].<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It\u2019s amazing we can even have this conversation with things that have happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Things have changed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>My conclusion after all of that and lots of personal flight time with lots of things is that to state the obvious, it\u2019s not a panacea. It\u2019s for most people, not going to be one and done where the potion pill plant medicine does all the heavy lifting for you. The way I think about it now is it\u2019s like very complicated knee reconstructive surgery. It\u2019s like you\u2019re going to want to pick the doctor very carefully, you\u2019re going to want to know how to do your due diligence. You have the surgery and then guess what? The next, let\u2019s even, could be like both shoulders, both knees. Boy, do you have a lot of rehab to do. And that\u2019s the way that I myself think about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And also, it\u2019s contraindicated for a lot of people, at least as of right now. There are exclusionary criteria for these clinical trials and I don\u2019t think all of them will hold water long term. But if you have bipolar, if you have a family history of schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder, it is generally not a good idea. And coming back to the polypharma, do not underestimate the risk of cannabis when taken with or in proximity to these drugs. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I would say to deliver on the brain stimulation side, that one of the most interesting things to me right now is the one-day protocol that\u2019s been refined by Dr. Jonathan Downar at University of Toronto and others, but using an agent, in this case an antibiotic to induce neuroplasticity called d-cycloserine. So you take, in this case, it\u2019s just a coincidence, but I think the most common dose that\u2019s been used is a 125 milligrams, like an oral troche and you dissolve it an hour before your stimulation. And again, I\u2019m pulling this from memory so people can read up on the literature, but you take that five day protocol that had been compressed by Nolan and team down from three to six months, they had compressed it down to five days, but people are still having to take five days off of work because you\u2019re getting stimulated 10 times a day, right? Every hour on the hour, there are variable protocols, but that\u2019s roughly it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Very few people can take a week off of work and pay out of pocket, incredibly expensive. So this one day is pre-loading with the d-cycloserine and you take those five days and you compress it into one day. And I\u2019ve had experiences with this one day protocol and full disclosure, I\u2019m involved with this company, Ampa Health, which is co-founded by Jonathan Downar. So there\u2019s that. But I experienced all this before any of these conversations and from that, I\u2019ve been able to get like a 90% reduction in my generalized anxiety disorder and OCD for three to four months at a time. Some people get much longer durability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Wow, that\u2019s impressive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019ve met people who\u2019ve had 18 months of durability with major depressive disorder one day and the side effect profile and there are other hardware providers and so on that you can look into, but having this accelerated TMS protocol enhanced by the neuroplasticity of this d-cycloserine, DCS for short, it\u2019s been a real focus is trying to look at neuromodulation writ large as opposed to just psychedelics, right? Because if the only tool you have is hammer, and this is not my expression, right? A lot of things start to look like nails and psychedelics are not useful for everything. They just are not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you look at any historical use of these compounds, having thousands and millions of people taking psychedelics is a brand-new experiment. If you look at most indigenous cultures who consume, whether it\u2019s Psilocybe mushrooms or ayahuasca or something else, it is a very, very, very, very small percentage of the population, typically reserved for who you might consider the ethnobotanist\/pharmacist\/medicine man or woman. And pre-Columbian contact for instance with like in the case of ayahuasca, two things. Number one, the patients seldom drank. \u201cThe patients\u201d because two of the principal uses of ayahuasca were for warfare and hunting. So this idea of like we just put LSD or whatever the psychedelic <em>du jour<\/em> is in the water and we have world peace, it ain\u2019t a real thing, guys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>No. It could be the opposite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Go to any psychedelic conference and look at the obscene infighting for any proof of that. It\u2019s the worst. It\u2019s so, so bad. What they do, coming back to your point, and alongside the d-cycloserine and many other compounds, is they induce neuroplasticity, which affords you a window of opportunity within which you can do some pretty cool stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I\u2019m totally on board. It\u2019s interesting because as we\u2019re moving through exercise and psychedelics, which is really a conversation about neuroplasticity and mental health, perhaps physical health as well, it\u2019s very clear that all the stuff about exercise, increasing brain derived neurotrophic factor\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s all tied together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It\u2019s all tied together. And then you think, \u201cWell, why is my brain sharper after I exercise?\u201d There\u2019s an alertness thing, you\u2019re using your own chemistry to wake you up, some BDNF, but then people sort of assume you just have to do the exercise part. You actually have to go try and learn something to get the plasticity. It doesn\u2019t matter. You could quadruple the amount of circulating BDNF in your brain. Nothing\u2019s going to change. I know this for a fact because for years, I studied neuroplasticity. You need precisely timed neural firing pre and post synaptically. You can do this with sensory input. We\u2019re talking about reading, math, learning to vibe code, is that what they call it now, right? Which Rick Rubin invented. No, I\u2019m kidding. He didn\u2019t. He\u2019s going to kill me for saying that, but the memes would make you think so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever it is that you want to rewire, you have to go do that hard work. Just getting the chemicals increased doesn\u2019t do it. You need alertness, you need these chemicals circulating. It helps to have an emotional rise if it\u2019s for certain kinds of work and perhaps not for others, more analytic work requiring probably less of an emotional rise. But the directed part is that that\u2019s the next step and I think about that a lot. Having sat down as you have with so many guests now who are experts in psychiatry and psychology and self-help, for lack of a better way to put it, it\u2019s reassuring to me that as with exercise, as with nutrition, as with psychedelics, some themes are starting to fall out. We\u2019re starting to almost get to principles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s this wonderful book in the field of neuroscience called <em>Principles of Neural Science<\/em>. Almost everyone gets it. It\u2019s a big old thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I think I have that textbook. It\u2019s old, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Used to be Kandel, Jessell, and Schwartz, and then one of those folks got canceled and then passed away and so it\u2019s got a different author line there, but that was the original one, Kandel, Jessell, and Schwartz. And the idea is principles of neural science. Yes, it\u2019s filled with facts about receptors and neurotransmitters and tons of beautiful details of all these discoveries, but what you learn as a graduate student and a postdoc, and then when you eventually become a professor, you want to teach the students is what are the principles of how a nervous system builds itself? Attractants and repellents. What are the principles by which neural circuits change? Oh, you need coordinated firing. You can actually unwire things if they\u2019re mismatched firing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you build a memory and then move it someplace else so that you don\u2019t have to fill the memory making area to its capacity? The principles are what eventually emerge and that\u2019s very useful. In the fields, if you will, of health and wellness, which umbrellas, all the things we\u2019ve been talking about and a lot more, we\u2019re finally getting to that. This is the reason why I throw out exhale emphasized breathing slows you down, calms you down and inhale emphasized breathing wakes you up. Resistance training to or near or past failure, that kind of scales the number of sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are finally at a place where because of social media, thank goodness, because of podcasts. Again, huge hat tip to you. Yours was the first podcast I ever listened to, still listen to. We are finally at this place where people are starting to hear like, \u201cYeah, I get it. The sunlight thing.\u201d You go, \u201cYou get it? Okay, cool.\u201d Ironically, the things that people have heard many, many times are often things they need to do every day and be reminded of many, many times. But it\u2019s not about getting morning sunlight for X number of minutes, et cetera. It\u2019s about understanding what is it in this morning sunlight thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ll tell you right now, the big eye-opener for me, no pun intended this last year was I did an episode on cortisol, the \u201cstress hormone.\u201d No, cortisol is involved with stress. Yes, that\u2019s true. But cortisol mobilizes glucose from the liver and elsewhere into the body. It\u2019s an energy deploying hormone. When you wake up in the morning, it\u2019s because of a rise in cortisol. The cortisol awakening response. Adenosine is very low, melatonin is dropping, cortisol goes up, you wake up. If your alarm goes off, it spikes even more. Viewing bright light, ideally from sunlight first thing in the morning increases that morning cortisol spike by about 50%. Okay, and on and on, and I could say, and also cold water and caffeine and exercise. Exercise, by the way, will triple or quadruple your baseline cortisol levels at any time of the 24-hour cycle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you go, \u201cOkay, that\u2019s a bunch more facts.\u201d Ah, but the principle is if your morning cortisol is high and you can make it higher doing any number of the things I just described, it ensures that your evening and nighttime cortisol is low and that\u2019s what sets you up for an increase in melatonin. It\u2019s what helps ensure a great night\u2019s sleep. And so you go, okay, so the real principle here is you want to bookend the day with high cortisol in the morning whenever your morning happens to be. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s 6:00 AM or 10:00 AM, bright light, caffeine, hydration, exercise. A little stress too probably will help and you want the end of your day to be low cortisol, high melatonin, high adenosine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The more movement you get during the day, the better off you are and all of a sudden it doesn\u2019t really matter if you have access or the time to do all of the things I just described. It\u2019s not about morning sunlight per se. It just turns out that morning sunlight in your eyes is the best way to ramp up that morning peak and that ramped up morning peak is the best way to make sure that it\u2019s low at night and if you experience any stress in the evening at night, it\u2019s a quick blip in cortisol and that\u2019s reduced. Otherwise, it\u2019s a blip on top of a high baseline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You look at cancer treatment outcomes, you look at anxiety, you look at\u2014and by the way, what I just described is true for kids, pregnant women, perimenopausal, menopausal, and men. You want high morning, low evening and nighttime cortisol. Aim for that, that principle, whatever you have available to do that, if you\u2019re on a plane, it looks different. If you\u2019re in California, it looks different than if you\u2019re in Scandinavia, different times of year. Whatever you do to try and ensure that book ending, high and low cortisol respectively morning and night, you won. You won the day and the night. And so it doesn\u2019t really matter what the individual protocols are. And this to me is like the most important and exciting thing about where the \u201cfield\u201d of health and wellness and public discourse about health has taken us, which is we finally have some principles to work with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then if people go, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t like the cold shower.\u201d Okay, fine. \u201cBut I don\u2019t like resistance training. I want to do pila\u2014\u201d Okay, fine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Choose a different tool, but the principles are what count. And to me, that\u2019s super exciting. That\u2019s not boring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right Andrew, I want to ask you about peptides. All the rage, you look at Google trends, everybody and their brother has a peptide startup, but there seems to maybe be something there. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a there there. For people who have heard the word, don\u2019t know exactly what folks are talking about. I get texted every week multiple times from people asking about various peptides and I\u2019d say half the time, depending on what they\u2019re trying to do, I\u2019m like, \u201cCan\u2019t you just be a grownup and inject testosterone or HGH instead if you\u2019re trying to get there directly.\u201d But I would be very interested to hear, I know there\u2019s a broad spectrum of stuff that people are experimenting with. What are these things and what\u2019s your current thinking?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I also don\u2019t completely disagree with you about just be a grown up and take cypionate and HGH if you want to maintain fertility, take some HCG as well. I\u2019m being facetious, of course. I think there are risks to all of those, but it is the appropriate opening joke\/reality because if you\u2019re expecting cypionate HGH type results from peptides, you ain\u2019t going to get them, at least not with respect to anabolic growth, feelings of wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p>Peptides are short chains of amino acids. Insulin\u2019s a peptide, et cetera. I cannot take credit for what I\u2019m about to say next, but it\u2019s a very, very important principle. I think this is kind of the theme today, I suppose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Abud Bakri, who\u2019s an MD, came on the podcast, talked about peptides and he said, \u201cLook, for many, many hundreds, if not thousands of years, but certainly hundreds of years in the context of pharma, people have been searching for medicines in plants, isolating medicines from plants. Pharma companies still do this. Now people are starting to look for medicines within the body and peptides are a great example of that.\u201d GLP, for instance, the drugs that increase GLP do so to thousandfold levels over the levels of circulating GLP that you would have and they result in, as we all know, robust weight loss. So that\u2019s one category. I think we need to think about categories of peptides, but understand that peptides are all over, they\u2019re made in your brain and body. Some of them may have benefits when made synthetically and delivered at very, very high doses, such as with these GLP agonists, Ozempic, Mounjaro. Retatrutide is one that we should talk about made by Lilly. It\u2019s coming out soon. It impacts the GLP system, but also the GIP and the glucagon system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Careful with that one, kiddos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>A lot of people are going to be microdosing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>A lot of people are finding that microdoses can have similar effects and that\u2019s an important kind of cost risk analysis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okay. So stepping back, peptides are made in your body. At high concentrations made synthetically, they may provide benefits that make them medicines. So we can think of the weight loss peptides, the GLPs being the most prominent example. The GLP drugs that increased levels of GLP hundredfold were used to treat diabetes for a while, still are, but they didn\u2019t induce much weight loss. The ones that raised GLP levels thousandfold or more, those lead to robust weight loss, including muscle loss. And so that\u2019s part of the controversy. Also, there\u2019s discussion about maybe increasing some apathy. They reduced craving for alcohol and perhaps cravings more generally. At the recommended dosages in some people, they can create nausea, which is why some people are taking less of them and still getting the weight loss benefits, but less nausea. There\u2019s a lot of stuff going on there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But to stay on the GLPs and weight loss peptides specifically. Lilly developed retatrutide, which hits the GLP, GIP and glucagon system, leads to the most robust weight loss, seems to spare some muscle perhaps. People should always resistance train anyway to offset that. But it\u2019s the most effective of those weight loss, let\u2019s just call it, GLPs, even though it hits these other systems.<\/p>\n<p>The gray market is the \u201cfor research purposes only\u201d stuff that you can buy online. It\u2019s perfectly legal to sell for research purposes only, not for animal or human use. And I joked on X a while ago like, \u201cWow, all these home labs, everyone\u2019s buying this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course people are injecting them. The concern is about contamination with things like lipopolysaccharide or you\u2019re not getting what you think you\u2019re getting.<\/p>\n<p>So many people are already taking retatrutide even though it hasn\u2019t been formally released because it\u2019s pretty easy to synthesize. And so, it\u2019s being sold on the gray market, people are taking it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a second category, and then I\u2019ll return to the gray market issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second category would be things to increase growth hormone. So-called growth hormone secretagogues, things like Sermorelin, Ipamorelin, Tesamorelin. These are all variants on the theme of get the brain neurons that project down to the pituitary to stimulate release of growth hormone at night. Typically, you don\u2019t eat a couple hours before sleep is the idea. Probably good for sleep anyway. It is good for sleep anyway. Then you inject this stuff. Typically, it leads to maybe a three to eightfold increase in growth hormone, IGF-1. Some stimulate appetite quite a bit like MK677, some don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve tried sermorelin very briefly. Dramatically increased my slow wave deep sleep, nuked my REM sleep. This is a common theme. Spiked my prostate specific antigen. I\u2019ve never had any problems with PSA. I came off it. PSA went back to normal. No one\u2019s been able to give me a mechanistic explanation for that. I\u2019m not about to run the experiment again. I didn\u2019t find that I got much fat loss from it, but I didn\u2019t use it very long. I didn\u2019t find that I got stronger. Just didn\u2019t seem worth it to me, given the PSA thing. A lot of people take these thinking they\u2019re going to get these really dramatic increases in growth hormone. They sound dramatic, three to eightfold, but whether or not they\u2019re meaningful in terms of fat loss, it doesn\u2019t really seem they\u2019re that robust, especially given that you have all the GLPs now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the growth hormone secretagogues also include things like CJC, and there\u2019s some variants on these which can lead to some insulin resistance, but maybe it spikes GH a bit more. I don\u2019t know. None of those to me really seem worth it personally, just given the effects aren\u2019t that great. If someone can afford it and they can get a script for it, probably better to just take pharma grade somatropin or omnitrope growth hormone. And the bodybuilders would take 8 IUs a day or something crazy like that. But in the trials that have been done with metformin and GH, typically it\u2019s people are taking 1 to 2 IUs five nights per week. That will dramatically increase deep sleep and probably sleep overall, and the effects on fat loss and just tissue repair healings and feelings of wellbeing and just cognitive function.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anecdotally and subjectively people say, \u201cWow, I just feel so great.\u201d This is the getting up in the morning and being like, \u201cWow, my joints feel good.\u201d And just being ready to go, go, go. It\u2019s not anabolic as much as something like testosterone, et cetera. But I\u2019m not telling people to run out and do GH, but if you could get a good script, a script for real GH and take a low dose versus taking a bunch of unknown secretagogue peptides, that seems like an obvious one for me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there\u2019s a category of things like BPC-157, Body Protection Compound 157, which is an amino acid chain that is in gastric juice, but it\u2019s this isolated amino acid chain that seems to be the one that\u2019s most popular. And at the same time, it\u2019s the one for which most people probably are taking it for all the wrong reasons. I\u2019ve tried it. I definitely feel like after a pain or strain, the recovery is faster, but I can\u2019t do the control experiment because it goes systemic. So it\u2019s not like you could\u2014let\u2019s say you hurt both biceps. You can\u2019t inject into one bicep and not the other and assume that it\u2019s just acting locally. It\u2019s going to go systemically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are capsule forms of BPC that people claim are just as good. I don\u2019t know. Do you have to inject locally close to the injury? It seems that might be helpful. The animal data on BPC are really impressive. Cartilage regrowth, fibroblast migration, angiogenesis, nerve regrowth. It\u2019s a literature I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with. There\u2019s not a single published human trial. Where I think the most interesting use of it perhaps is, is I know someone recently she wrote to me and she said that her dog had a spinal injury and she said, \u201cDoes BPC work in animals?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I go, \u201cActually, pretty much all the data are in animals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if my dog, God forbid, had an injury, I\u2019d be willing to give him or her BPC. You have to work out the appropriate dosage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How would you source that, hypothetically?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So you can get it from compounding pharmacies now, so you need a doctor to write that script. Depending on your risk tolerance, you could go to the gray market for research purposes only. I wouldn\u2019t do that. Peptide Sciences shuttered their doors, windows, whatever. They closed a few months back. They sensed the he at coming on and they\u2019re like, \u201cWe\u2019re out.\u201d They took their money and they\u2019re out. Smart move Peptide Sciences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So nowadays, you can find doctors that will prescribe it. There\u2019s also pentadecapeptide, which is just a different form of BPC, seems to have same function. It\u2019s easier to find. And getting it from a compounding pharmacy, of course, compounding pharmacies vary in stringency, but is going to be cleaner than the gray market sourcing, of course. But I have no relationship to these pharmacies. But for instance, Tailor Made, Upstate, Revive Pharmacy, these are kind of the better known and trusted compounding pharmacies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Compounding pharmacies were allowed to compound drugs that are still under patent during shortages and can compound generic drugs. They\u2019ll also truly compound peptides. You can get BPC with another one, the TB500, the so-called Wolverine Stack. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve never tried TB500. I keep some BPC-157 in the fridge. If I have a strain, I\u2019ll inject it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Can I hop in for a second?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>The challenge with so much of this stuff is you can\u2019t do the control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Can\u2019t do the control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because I took the Wolverine Stack after I had elbow surgery and I\u2019m like, \u201cDid it help?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have no idea. Frankly, I have no idea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I will say this, I\u2019ve used it a few times, very short runs of it. I\u2019m not interested in using it as a general recovery tool or every day or any\u2014I don\u2019t have any gut issues. So people have used high doses of BPC to resolve gut issues. That was the original use. In this clinical trial, they did BPC enemas at very high dosages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds like an Austin party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And supposedly, I learned this from Abud, Pavlov actually had a side gig. He was a health influencer. He would give people gastric juices to try and resolve ulcers and things like that. And we know gastric juices contain a number of beneficial peptides, but I don\u2019t recommend that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did they down those or how did they get them in there?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>How\u2019d they down them and how\u2019d they get them?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Shot glass of gastric juices?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I mean, maybe he had a cabinet of people with the\u2014they\u2019re tapping them. Yeah, rough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So people say, \u201cShould I take BPC-157?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No, you shouldn\u2019t unless you have an injury or maybe in that case you get clean, compounded pharmacy BPC and you inject it locally, or you take it systemically. You try it, see if it helps. But why would you take it ongoing? That just doesn\u2019t make any sense to me. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to me, frankly. And again, you go back to your sort of half joke at the beginning, you really want to recover quickly from exercise, take an IU or 2 IUs of GH every night before sleep, and you\u2019ll recover magnificently well. For the Enhanced Games, the swimmer, the massive lats guy, he recently put\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>His regimen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>\u2014his stack out. And I think it was 200 milligrams of cypionate per week. So that\u2019s 1 cc of standard cypionate. That\u2019s a lot. I have to say, most people I know, and we can talk about this\u2014and I\u2019ve talked about my cypionate use from the beginning and the experiment much, much lower. I believe in microdosing that, if at all. He\u2019s taking 200, plus I think he\u2019s doing 2 IUs of growth hormone per night or five nights per week. And he\u2019s taking EPO. They can only take FDA approved drugs. It\u2019s enhanced, but\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean were they testing at all to verify if they\u2019re FDA approved versus\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014FDA non-approved? That would be a complicated test to run.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It\u2019s kind of interesting to ask, was there any rule breaking in the steroid Olympics?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Maybe it was a sink test, you\u2019ve heard this, right? Like urine sample and they just pour it in the sink. Passed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Some of the powerlifters like Thor were very open about the fact that they were not allowed to use the things they would normally use because they weren\u2019t FDA approved. So it\u2019s kind of interesting. It seemed like they were running the middle of the road, but\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s a lot of juice. I think he was also, if I\u2019m thinking of the same Australian swimmer\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I think so, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m not sure. But yeah, he was also quoted, this was many months before the actual competition, but he\u2019s like, \u201cI am going to juice to the gills.\u201d So those would be\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Well, it looks like he almost grew gills, because his lats were like, not Yates size, but he\u2019s a very tall guy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few Olympics ago, I think it wasn\u2019t the last one. It was the one before that. This female runner got popped for Deca, and she claimed it came from a burrito that she ate, the Deca burrito. And I\u2019m a track and field fan, and so are some other folks around the studio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s Deca-Durabolin for people that don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I might be mispronouncing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>No, yeah, that\u2019s correct.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Nandrolone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Non-aromatizing, doesn\u2019t convert to estrogen as far as we know. People use it for joint healing and things of that sort. I\u2019ve never tried it. But someone in our studio said this, and I think they\u2019re spot on. They hope she used it. Because if she didn\u2019t and she got nailed for it from a burrito or some other source, that sucks. Because there\u2019s a huge stigma that goes with that. She goes, she can\u2019t compete. And you never really shake that reputation. So my hope is that she actually took it and got caught as opposed to didn\u2019t take it and got caught for something she didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, the burrito\u2014the burrito alibi is pretty flimsy. Last time I checked, you can\u2019t just nibble on Deca and have it do much for you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Well, and Canelo Alvarez got popped for Clenbuterol, and he claimed it came from some food he ate in Mexico, the Clen cow hypothesis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right, Clen cow. Do you remember back when, I think, modafinil was fair game if it were prescribed. And it was something like the majority, if not all of the finalists in some of the track and field events, were all diagnosed narcoleptics. They were all\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What are the chances that these mutants would all be narcoleptics?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Totally. BPC would be very hard to detect because your body makes it naturally. As with the GLPs, again, they stimulate such a massive increase in action at those receptors that you probably detect it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So those are the kind of the healing ones, the tissue repair ones, TB-500, BPC, there are others, but those are the main ones. And then there\u2019s the miscellaneous category, things like epitalon, which actually comes from the pineal, which is weird, because there\u2019s also a peptide called pinealon, which doesn\u2019t come from the pineal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That is confusing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Epitalon is thought to allow for preservation of histone and DNA structure. It\u2019s very vague. There are some decent data on visual repair for animal models of retinitis pigmentosa, maybe more robust circadian setting when you travel. I may have tried this recently, a capsule form of epitalon combined with some sunlight in the morning for the first two days, did seem to shift my clock more quickly, but I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For jet lag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>For jet lag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You know what tip I got?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Maybe, but I\u2019m not going to do it again because I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a there there, but I was chatting with this friend of mine. She\u2019s a frequent traveler from Japan to the US. She lives in Japan. She\u2019s constantly going back and forth. And she\u2019ll come for just a few days and then head back. The possibility for getting brutalized is high, just hopping so many time zones. And she gave me a tip and I tried it, and it could be placebo. Who knows? She was just like, just fast. She\u2019s like, \u201cOn the long flights, I just fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I tried that going to Asia is always a little bit easier than coming back. I was totally fine. I couldn\u2019t believe it, because I had to do a very short trip for reasons I won\u2019t bore people with. Don\u2019t know what the mechanism would be, but I was like, \u201cOh, maybe there\u2019s something there.\u201d I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Well, we have our central circadian clock, SCN. Most people have heard of that now. The eyes connect to it directly, which is why sunlight and other forms of light are so efficient at shifting our clock. But we have a lot of peripheral clocks, liver clocks, gut clocks, and those are usually the last to shift, which is why a lot of people have kind of a feeling like their stomach is off, digestion is off when they travel. Maybe not traveler\u2019s diarrhea, but they just sort of feel like waking up in the middle of the night, they\u2019re hungry, they\u2019re on the previous location\u2019s meal schedule. Fasting may allow for shifting of those clocks. Mealtimes are a very robust thing in terms of raising our levels of arousal. There\u2019s you eat every day at noon. A couple minutes before you get that arousal, the well time systems. So that\u2019s not totally surprising.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pinealon is one I\u2019ve experimented with and is very interesting and I have to say there are very few things that increase REM sleep. Most things deplete REM sleep. In fact, I always joke if somebody needs a PhD quick and nothing\u2019s working, have them do a study of sleep and give any drug, and it disrupts REM sleep. I don\u2019t study sleep, but that\u2019s a kind of a well-known joke in labs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How do you spell Pinealon?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>P-I-N-E-A-L-O-N.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, they really wanted to be as confusing as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And it does not come from the pineal. The nomenclature sucks in this area. And we don\u2019t even have names for these different bins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Some half-baked postdoc is like, \u201cYou know what would be really funny?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>To call the stuff of the pineal, epitalon, spelled two different ways, by the way, out there, Epithalon and epitalon. And Pinealon, and then swap them. Pinealon comes from the cortex. It\u2019s made in the cortex, neocortex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I will say there are a couple things that will increase REM. With no pharmacology, you can heat up your sleeping environment in the final two hours of your sleep. You\u2019ll get much more REM. Thank you, Matt Walker for that trick. It\u2019s awesome. So cool at the beginning of the night, cold in the middle of the night and warm toward morning. Or throw on a heated blanket or whatever, a weighted blanket or some socks and a wool cap if you wake up about two-thirds of the through your sleep, use the bathroom. You\u2019ll be surprised how much better your REM is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other thing is, and this is a nice one if you want to work out late in the day, you don\u2019t want to take caffeine because you still want to sleep that night. If you take alpha GPC, 900 mg of alpha GPC, alpha GPC, which as you know, increases\u2014it\u2019s like choline donor, acetylcholine, that system. You can still sleep that night and it will increase your REM sleep. And it is true. Remember we said high cortisol morning, low cortisol at night. That\u2019s the optimal setup that we should aim for. If you exercise after work, and you do, let\u2019s say, a high intensity session of any kind, the resistance training we were talking about earlier, for instance, you will triple or quadruple your cortisol levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I should also earmark that as all this stuff online, which seems mainly directed towards women like, \u201cOh, cold showers and baths, ice baths are going to spike your cortisol. That\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The increase in cortisol from deliberate cold exposure is trivial compared to what working out with weights will do. So late day cortisol spikes are no problem if it comes up and down, but you also wouldn\u2019t want to take caffeine on top of that and disrupt your sleep. So if you have a late day workout and you need a bit of a stimulant, alpha GPC is a good tool, and you\u2019ll likely get more REM sleep. So it\u2019s a nice one. And then, pinealon, I will use every once in a while.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For what reason?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>You get three hours of REM if you\u2019re me. Three hours. And it doesn\u2019t disrupt your slow wave deep sleep. It is wild. And here\u2019s the cool part. It works that night and it seems to work all the nights after.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There\u2019s some carryover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>There\u2019s carryover, and it seems the hypothesis based on the animal data is that it can help \u201cregenerate the pineal,\u201d which is a dangerous term because you don\u2019t want cells proliferating either. So who knows what it\u2019s doing, but I\u2019ll use it every once in a while.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Always a good place to start.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Now Abud likes it in the daytime. He\u2019ll take it in the daytime. People use it for cognitive enhancement. He claims there\u2019s a founder of a major company that has all his employees on it for daytime work. I know someone that takes it during the daytime because\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Don\u2019t tell HR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Because he\u2019s a songwriter, a very talented songwriter, and he likes the hypnotic state it puts him in. I\u2019m interested in sleeping at night and being alert during the day. Great tool for occasional use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Is that subcutaneous injection or what is that?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>They also have oral forms. I\u2019ve only tried the subcutaneous injection. And you do need to find a doctor that can prescribe it and get it from a compounding pharmacy. I think pinealon\u2019s a very interesting compound. And I\u2019ve been monitoring my blood work the whole time doing this. So tried sermorelin, stopped using it. I\u2019ve never used a GLP. I\u2019m kind of curious because a lot of people are talking about low dose tirzepatide or retatrutide, like a 10th of the prescribed dose for not just weight loss but for just cognitive wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, neuroprotective effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Neuroprotective effects, maybe other things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019m interested in that stuff. I\u2019m so curious, and maybe there\u2019s literature out there. I haven\u2019t read it. But if it\u2019s a direct\u2014if the mechanism of action is separate from the metabolic effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right? Because if you take someone who has insulin resistance or is on the path to insulin resistance and you correct for that, then that in and of itself on some level should be neuroprotective, right? Especially if you\u2019re looking at vascular dementia or any number of things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Glaucoma, there\u2019s some interesting data that tirzepatide may reduce eye pressure, so that\u2019s interesting. BPC-157 has this asterisk next to it. It will cause angiogenesis. So people are saying you don\u2019t want to vascularize a tumor, obviously, accelerate cancers, that kind of thing. You don\u2019t want to supply more blood nutrients to a tumor. It\u2019ll gobble them up and grow. But it is not mutagenic. So it\u2019s not carcinogenic mutagenic per se. And that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here\u2019s something interesting, too. There\u2019s the kind of sociology behind all of these. There are a couple more we can touch on, but the GLPs, the prescription GLPs and the massive growth of that area is guilty of making the general public comfortable with injections. So it\u2019s kind of interesting, the battles online are between\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Here we go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. It\u2019s like, you created this problem. Most people don\u2019t talk about this, but the traditional media and medicine like to couch the peptide thing as a bunch of gym bros. Mm-mm. Massive market in women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Most people taking these peptides are not gym-going guys. It\u2019s women who want to take a low-dose reta, but reta\u2019s not out yet. Or they want to take low-dose tirzepatide cocktailed with NAD, with some GHK-Cu or GHK copper, which is for\u2014there\u2019s some studies that show that in combination with red light therapy or some sun exposure just enough might remove wrinkles. The biggest market is women. And I\u2019m not trying to defend the bro science guy, but it\u2019s kind of funny that the target has been like these guys on X who are selling peptides. That\u2019s not where to place\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s an easier target, right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>There\u2019s also this very interesting sociology around natty or not stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What the hell does that mean?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. If someone takes GLPs, are they now\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, not natural? Okay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. But for men, that\u2019s kind of the thing. Does someone get called out or not? My recommendation, this is what I\u2019ve always done, is always just talk about everything you\u2019ve taken or are taking or not taking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, also, can I pause for a second just to say, I think I\u2019m getting the name of the doc right? <em>Bigger, Stronger<\/em>,<em> Faster<\/em>, which has Mark Bell and Chris Bell, I think it was, who directed and made the film. Great film to watch. It\u2019s older. But at some point, they\u2019re talking about this. And they put up, I want to say, it\u2019s a four point quadrant, I mean by definition, and they\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, so you can inject EPO to increase red blood cell count and like oxygen carrying capacity.\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cOr you can live at altitude, or you can have an altitude simulation tent.\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cAre any of these natural?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right. You get an infusion of your own blood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Testosterone cypionate will increase red blood cell count.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, for sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And people don\u2019t talk about\u2014it\u2019s not EPO like, but certainly, cardio gets better. So even without the addition of muscle, recovery gets better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, I\u2019ll tell you, I mean, personally, and I\u2019ve written about this, which is funny just to maybe air a grievance, right? I talked at length in <em>The 4-Hour Body<\/em> about post-surgical anabolic use, and then online it\u2019s like, \u201cTim Ferriss admits\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I\u2019m like, \u201cAdmit? I fucking wrote about it at length.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Totally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Just the wording is such a weasel word, I admitted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, yeah. Well, somehow, even though five years ago I said, \u201cOh, yeah, I decided to run an experiment where I tried cypionate with HCG.\u201d Keep sperm production online, and just low dose, and just see what\u2019s the minimal effective dose. I\u2019m not competing in any sports. I don\u2019t think it makes that big of a difference except in terms of recovery. I didn\u2019t change my training before or after I went off and on again. I do think that, okay, so that\u2019s within the male community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the women and peptides, there\u2019s this other piece which is like who\u2019s getting plastic surgery and who\u2019s not, who\u2019s getting\u2014nowadays, the dermatologists certainly in Los Angeles, but in Northern California too, recommend some amount of laser resurfacing to reduce cancer risk, but it also reduces wrinkles. So what are people doing? None of it is particularly natural. I think for competitive sports is where it becomes an important issue. But I think that the pharma grade GLP world made sticking little tiny needles, 31 gauge or 30 gauge needles into one\u2019s skin to inject something just kind of like, \u201cOkay, no biggie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I\u2019ll tell you the first person to sell pharma grade, maybe compounded pharmacy peptide pens where you just dial it in, it\u2019s not a syringe. People are much more comfortable with pens than they are with syringes. They\u2019re going to make a killing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So then there are a bunch of other things like Melanotan, makes people tan, but it can make you way too tan. It can cause priapism like permanent erection or dangerously long erection, greatly increase libido. But keep in mind Vyleesi is a FDA approved drug for female hyposexuality. Lowers orgasmic threshold, stimulates libido. It also works in men. I\u2019ve never tried it, but it also works in men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Not sure most men want that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So I asked someone at Stanford who\u2019s in the department of urology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I never do this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>In the department of urology\u2014actually, there are a lot of interesting drugs that are pro-libido for men, but they\u2019ll never get marketed. Because the idea of more men wanting more sex is just not something that society seems to want.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Although with the shift in kind of self-hatred, and one could argue diminished aspects of mental and physical health in men, maybe some people would really benefit from it. But Melanotan is yet another example.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>My view on the peptides thing is this, you do you, whoever you are, you decide what your risk thresholds are, but just be logical about it. Why would you take BPC if you don\u2019t have an injury? It\u2019s not going to accelerate your recovery that much. Certainly not as much as getting better sleep. So maybe you would think of pinealon, but get your relationship to light correct, get your relationship to caffeine correct. And I have to say, I\u2019ve gotten great benefit from the Mag, Threonate, Apigenin, Theanine stack. I don\u2019t think you need pinealon until you\u2019ve tried everything else and then maybe try a supplement stack or even just one of those things. And then if you still need it, then pinealon makes sense. But just leaping to pinealon doesn\u2019t make sense given how little data there are. But there are some interesting drugs out there, too, like the DORAs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, yeah. I\u2019m taking Belsomra, mostly because of the Alzheimer\u2019s it runs in my family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Interesting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Super prevalent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Does it help your sleep?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It does. I can end up feeling a bit groggy in the morning, but you could explain. I ended up chatting with, as probably you did at some point, Matt Walker about this, very knowledgeable. It\u2019s still preliminary, but pretty interesting mechanistically in terms of clearance of various goodies that you do not want in your brain, at least as far as we know now. So, we\u2019ll see. It does help with sleep. The daytime sort of morning grogginess can be a bit of a hassle. So I\u2019ve been cycling on and off of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I tried Quviviq once, which is one of the DORAs. I got zombie sleep. I woke up in the same position I fell asleep in. I didn\u2019t feel rested even though I had slept through the night. I\u2019ve just not gone to prescription tools for it. But some people seem to like prescription tools. I think incidentally, there\u2019s a really nice paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA showing that short meditations can increase lymphatic clearance in the daytime. This is very interesting, I think.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, very cool. When you go into this meditative state, long exhales, focusing on breathing, meditation of\u2014more clearance of waste products on the brain during the meditation and in sleep that night, it seems increased, which is really interesting. Many people care about their nighttime HRV. Best way to increase nighttime HRV. So as long as you don\u2019t have apnea or some other issue is to do some exhale emphasized breathing practice during the day. Even just a few deliberate exhales during the day can increase nighttime HRV. So there seems to be this daytime, nighttime relationship that\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Interestingly, something for future research, but I\u2019ve seen HRV changes post TMS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, interesting. Yeah, that makes sense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Pretty fascinating to check out, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Post TMS, sorry, for a moment I heard TM because I was like\u2014I think Tim Ferriss, TM I think.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, probably both, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So yeah, the glymphatic stuff also is very intertwined with a lot of psychedelic science. Not to bring us back to that, but the glymphatic clearance is really fascinating. So I\u2019d love to check out that. We\u2019ll put it in the show notes, so I\u2019ll get that from you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah, very cool paper. The author sent it to me before it came out. I think it\u2019s just a really important finding. I go into a little bit in my book, but it was a recent finding so didn\u2019t have time to go into it too much. But if ever you needed another incentive to meditate for a few minutes, that\u2019s one. The peptide thing, it\u2019s funny, I feel like people feel safe enough to try them because they\u2019re enough like supplements, enough like drugs that they feel comfortable doing it. And cypionate sounds so scary. It\u2019s like, okay. Or GH sounds so scary, but there\u2019s a lot more data and they\u2019re pharma grade. And small dosages are always going to be better than big dosages. And the fertility thing on anything that increases testosterone is very real. They\u2019ve talked about inhalants and oral forms that don\u2019t disrupt fertility, but anyone that wants to maintain fertility is going to have to take HCG while taking that, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Or Post-Cycle Therapy with Clomid or something, but yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right. Yeah. So I think that the peptide thing is very interesting. I get excited anytime the general public is thinking about biology and this\u2014I love Abud\u2019s framework of people are now mining the body for medicines. And maybe that\u2019s why people feel like you\u2019ll see these criticisms. And they\u2019re understandable like, oh, all these people that wouldn\u2019t take a prescription drug will take these peptides. I think that when people hear that something\u2019s of the body, even if it\u2019s a synthetic form of something of the body, they\u2019re more likely to take it. And I can\u2019t quite relate to that psychology, but I sort of get it. I sort of get it. It\u2019s not some like stardust thing. At the same time, you\u2019re not going to see huge effects from any of these things except perhaps pinealon and that\u2019s still anecdotal, and the GLPs from retatrutide. Those have really robust effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everything else, BPC can have its potential role in healing for some people but there are no trials. And by the way, no one\u2019s going to do a trial and no one\u2019s going to do it properly. I keep hearing, oh, there\u2019s going to be a hamstring injury trial. There\u2019s going to be\u2014no one wants to put the time and effort. And having run a clinical trial and having done experiments in preclinical animal format for launch, it\u2019s a lot of work to do properly. You need to know what the endpoints are. [inaudible].<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s expensive. Who\u2019s going to pay for it also?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right. And I just don\u2019t see it happening. I think people are just going to take this stuff. I think the big win for someone out there, someone with an entrepreneurial spirit is going to be American made clean peptides with verified sourcing and all that so people can trust what they\u2019re getting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I\u2019ve seen, as you might imagine, like a thousand different startups trying to produce their own peptides, whatever it might be. I don\u2019t think I can talk about it yet, but the only one I backed is actually going to be verifying supply chain and all of that. It\u2019s just a stamp of this is what it says that\u2019s on the box, basically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. And it\u2019s interesting that unlike anabolic steroids, which in the \u201980s and in the \u201990s, and to some extent still today but really in the \u201980s and \u201990s where there were these outrageous adverse events, right? People committing murders, massive acne, dying, brain tumors and all, which is the consequence of probably a bunch of things, GH and steroids. To my knowledge, there has not been a reported adverse event that can be tacked back to one of these non-FDA approved peptides. I\u2019m not saying that means they\u2019re safe, but it\u2019s interesting that there are a lot of women taking them. There are a lot of men taking them, but there are a lot of women taking GHK copper in cream form or injectable form. If they\u2019re having terrible adverse\u2014well, adverse, terrible, that\u2019s redundant, adverse events, they\u2019re not reporting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So this is super important. I think there\u2019s a book called <em>Bad Science<\/em> by Ben Goldacre, who\u2019s an MD from the UK. There are a number of chapters that are not relevant to US audience, but it\u2019s a helpful book for teaching yourself to think in a structured way, scientifically about medicine. I think what you said is really important in the sense that\u2014well, let me use an analogy. Let\u2019s say we\u2019ve got Honda Civic, tons of Honda Civics. Man, they\u2019ve been around a long time, or just to say a cars. Okay, you\u2019ve got all this data on all these horrible accidents, you\u2019ve got vehicular manslaughter, you\u2019ve got all this stuff, right? Pretty bad report card, right? Lots of deaths. And then you\u2019re like, \u201cBut we\u2019ve got this brand new <em>Tron<\/em> motorcycle fresh off the press, right? No documented deaths, therefore it must be safe.\u201d And you\u2019re like, wait a second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That thing has not had a lot of mileage on it. Only one person has used it. And I\u2019m using a bit of an exaggerated example because this absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. And this is true also, again, not to sound like a broken record, but whether it is gray market reta or DIY for research purposes only peptide use or psychedelics, which still remain illegal in most places, there\u2019s no real reporting mechanism. It\u2019s like if you have a doctor and they prescribe you something and they ask you, \u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m growing horns. I\u2019ve got hemorrhoids, whatever the side effects might be. I\u2019m feeling really anxious.\u201d There is some means by which the feedback makes it back into the system, right? And certainly with clinical trials and so on, you would hope that to be the case. So for me, it\u2019s like when I\u2019m looking at these things, I\u2019m like, \u201cAll right, they might be great, but I feel some degree of reassurance.\u201d I haven\u2019t taken any anabolics in forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe if I were trying to have six kids, I\u2019d be like, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s do HCG,\u201d which does seem to have a pretty, for me at least, profound impact on libido which is sometimes nice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>HCG.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>That\u2019s probably due to the fact just an opportunity to throw in perhaps something useful is the old lore was guys want high testosterone, low estrogen. You want your estrogen as high as you can without getting side effects for libido purposes, for endothelial health, for brain health\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Cardioprotective for reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Cardioprotective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Bone density also.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Guys that quash their\u2014they take tamoxifen or anastrozole to quash their estrogen levels, that is a mistake. They often find that they have reduced libido. They are sort of dry out so to speak. They get more vulnerability to injuries. Hardly anybody nowadays does testosterone replacement therapy with an anastrozole. Almost every person goes like, \u201cI just feel better when I don\u2019t take it.\u201d Now, guys are getting gyno and all sorts of things they need to be careful. But for brain health, for libido, for all those things, HCG is going to increase both testosterone and estrogen. And even for just skin vitality look, not something men talk about too often, but if testosterone\u2019s too high and estrogen\u2019s low, skin doesn\u2019t look good. It just doesn\u2019t look good. It\u2019s the chicken skin. It\u2019s like the thin chicken skin thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Heavy anabolic users, not known for their pretty skin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Not known for their pretty skin. I think it\u2019s just really interesting that the peptide thing is all the rage. To my knowledge, not a lot of adverse events that can be separated out from\u2014I always hear infected injection site. Okay, so use an alcohol swab, pin yourself carefully, don\u2019t\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, I just want to double click on that for a second because when people get cavalier with injections, it\u2019s like speaking to someone who from a professional ended up getting a staph infection in the elbow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, yeah, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Take your hygiene seriously when it comes to injections, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, my God. I\u2019m just looking\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Don\u2019t run and gun and like you\u2019re\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>This is a running joke around here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014behind the dumpster at the Denny\u2019s with no alcohol swab. Don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, don\u2019t do that. Don\u2019t reuse needles. Don\u2019t dip back into the vial with a needle because you didn\u2019t get enough because you can contaminate the vial. Use good practices. But a lot of people think that moving to creams or to capsules is going to sell more peptides. Very interesting observation I think is that people want the injectables. It feels more real. Capsules feel more like supplements, which are a mixed bag. It\u2019s interesting, right? If I told you, okay, BPC and capsule form, same as injectable. Yeah, but if I inject the injury site, it just feels more is going on. This is where placebo effect may actually be real. Or it may be that the capsule forms are not as good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, also we\u2019re getting in the weeds here, but just because something is oral also doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s safer than injectable, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Definitely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because you look at Anadrol 50 versus injectable t-cypionate, it\u2019s like if you are smashing your liver, you can do a lot of damage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, absolutely. I don\u2019t think people should run around doing anabolics by all means. Certainly, the number of guys in their 20s, 30s and even 40s that think that they need it. It\u2019s not necessarily so. One thing that I think would be wonderful, I\u2019m very excited about this, but it would be wonderful for the overall field but for supplementation in particular. Blood work has gotten relatively inexpensive now. The number of companies\u2026 they brought the cost of blood testing way down. People are now comfortable having someone take their blood and sending them their blood work. So there\u2019s a sociology to this. There\u2019s a shift. Wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful to get your blood work done? And then I envision a 3D printed blister pack with your morning and your afternoon or your morning and nighttime supplements that are tailored to your blood work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three months later, you do your blood work again and you get to see whether or not markers are moving into range better, update the 3D printing. Ideally pharma grade, that\u2019s how supplementation should be done. And I\u2019m excited for that possibility and that\u2019s much more my focus now, at least in terms of this stuff. I have a lot of different foci, but in terms of injectables and pills and things like that, then thinking about what\u2019s happening with peptides, because the legislation is changing constantly. Next administration could come in, whoever that happens to be, it could all get revamped. It\u2019s not a Wild West, but it\u2019s just not a well-defined field yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, I think it\u2019s pretty Wild West. It\u2019s just my two cents. I mean\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I\u2019m very conservative with this stuff these days. Maybe I\u2019m just getting old and boring. I don\u2019t know.I think as I\u2019ve gotten older, whether it\u2019s through the literature or maybe being on the receiving ends of a lot of anecdotal reports of adverse events for various things, I\u2019m just like, man, there\u2019s such a typical lack of reporting in wide population adverse events that I\u2019m like, man, you just got to measure twice and cut once.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Definitely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And if I can pick something that has 50 or 100 years of research where I know with some certainty what the adverse events are and the probability of those adverse events versus the latest and greatest thing where it\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, fly down to Honduras and have this gene therapy and hope it goes well.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cAh.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, the gene therapy thing is not ready in my opinion. We have a colleague in the health field who got an injection of stem cells into his spine and ended up with paralysis and almost died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, terrible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And grateful to the neurosurgeons at UCSF, shout out to Chair of Neurosurgery, Eddie Chang, who didn\u2019t do the surgery but one of his surgeons in his department did, and that injected with stem cells person is now mobile and healthy and strong, but it was a really close call. I know I actually got a call during the surgery about how it was going. This was a really good example of how even with attempted best practices and stem cell injections, there\u2019s always the potential for local infection and rejection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, let me give you one more. Not to be like the old guy who can\u2019t deal with the young whippersnappers, but\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Well, the goal nowadays is to be the old guy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, here\u2019s the thing. Also, there\u2019s mechanical risk in the sense that I\u2019ve had stem cell injections from like the most vetted at every step of the process stem cells. And from young donors, I won\u2019t go into all the details, but like very, very well vetted and involving US doctors,. And the doctor happened to have, I don\u2019t know if he was busy, preoccupied, distracted, but a little sloppy technique on trying to give me stem cells around the medial collateral ligament and injected my fat pad in the knee and made a bunch of structural damage. And my knee was fucked, and like still, like this is a year or two later, have residual pain in my knee. That is from physical damage with the needle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So it\u2019s like depending on what you\u2019re doing, if it\u2019s intraarticular or you\u2019re getting in there, it\u2019s not a foregone conclusion that it\u2019s going to be a smooth ride. And this is someone with thousands of injections, like they have the mileage. And this is as far as I can tell talking to other orthos and people who do similar injections, like it\u2019s a routine injection. The path of injection is very well established. Nonetheless, off day, smash, blew up to the size of volleyball the next day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Helen Blau lab at Stanford School of Medicine had a beautiful paper where they had mouse data and human data inhibiting a specific molecule. I don\u2019t recall which, and you could regrow cartilage in the knee. That\u2019s clearly headed off to clinical trials in pharma, but the effects that were demonstrated were incredible. There\u2019s an active inhibitor of cartilage regrowth and apparently you can inhibit the inhibitor and bring back cartilage. Wouldn\u2019t that be wonderful? Again, mining the body for its own \u201cMedicines.\u201d I mean, none of this stuff was supposed to happen naturally. And so we\u2019ve been pushing and prodding from the outside, taking things, plant derivatives that mimic neurotransmitters. Psilocybin is just one example, but all these drug companies, bioprospect from plants, learned that from Chris McCurdy, the expert on Kratom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s cool, it\u2019s really cool. I think medicine\u2019s on the fast track, and I\u2019m super excited about AI as a tool for self-directed medical exploration. Not necessarily for deciding which peptides to take, but maybe. But in terms of people trying to figure out like, \u201cHey, am I taking anything that might make my autoimmune condition worse?\u201d I have a friend who\u2019s got MS and takes a bunch of things, eats a bunch of things, turns out certain forms of mustard can flare up MS. Not everybody, but\u2014AI can look at your food intake, look at your habits, look at supplementation, make recommendations, and that\u2019s super powerful. And I just feel like AI is going to be an incredible medical tool, not just in terms of its ability to outperform physicians or aid physicians, but for people to really understand their blood work and understand the trajectories of their sleep scores and all this stuff. Like I\u2019m very, very excited. Then again, I\u2019m born and raised in Silicon Valley. So I\u2019m not thinking about the dystopian view of AI robots or robots taking over. I\u2019m thinking about people having more information and agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Coming right up, for me right now, the most interesting application of the LLMs is for health purposes. I mean, it\u2019s remarkable. I have friends who have the best doctors you can imagine, the most expensive folks you can conceive of and they have still caught stuff because no one\u2019s going to take your health as seriously as you are. Nor will, even if they take it seriously, will they have the time that you will dedicate to it. And they\u2019ve uploaded their genomes, added in the various bits and bobs from wearables and taken PDFs of labs and thrown them in and found very, very material insights that had not surfaced earlier in decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s not one person, it\u2019s not two people, this is at least four or five people I can think of who have all the means, all the time, all the interest. And yet it took these LLMs as a data dump and the ability of those LLMs to mine everything and to look for interrelated components to surface these, in their cases, actionable insights and it\u2019s early. This is top of the first, right? It\u2019s early for these things. So it\u2019s just going to get better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It is just going to get better. And one thing that Eddie Chang, this incredible neurosurgeon who studies speech and language at UCSF, again, I\u2019ve known him since I was seven and he\u2019s just this phenom. What he pointed out to me is that all the LLMs, they\u2019re all trained on the internet. Right now, AI is trained on the internet. It\u2019s not like trained on human brain activity. The next big step is recording your brain activity non-invasively ideally and building some AI tools from your brain activity. Like what\u2019s going on when you\u2019re in your most focused mode? What does that look like? What does it look like if you take a hundred milligrams of a given stimulant? What\u2019s your brain activity look like? Are there ways that you could modify your pharmacology and behavior and sleep and all that to really get your brain activity working the way you want?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so the real holy grail of AI, he tells me, is AI built on neural activity, not based on the internet which is the output of our neural activity. Of course that occurred to me, but it hadn\u2019t occurred to me in that form. And he and others are developing these ways of reading from the nervous system. You mentioned wearables, whether it\u2019s a WHOOP or it\u2019s an Oura, it\u2019s your Eight Sleep, it\u2019s measuring heart rate and body motion mainly. Accelerometers, HRV. By the way, the HRV is the reflection of how often that descending branch of the vagus slows your heart rate down. That\u2019s what it is. So every time you\u2019re increasing HRV, you\u2019re slowing your heart rate down, that\u2019s the vagal reflection in your WHOOP score, in your sleep score from your Oura. The HRV is that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, that\u2019s great. That\u2019s not a direct readout of your autonomic nervous system. That\u2019s heart rate. Okay. Well, that\u2019s a start, but what about direct read of the autonomic nervous system? What about a little sticker that can record non-invasively the number of nerve impulses traveling up a branch of the vagus? A lot of them travel really superficially, behind the ears. What about a non-invasive brain stimulator that looks like a baseball cap? A few years ago, there were things like Halo, which were designed to ramp up neural activity, accelerate plasticity. I don\u2019t know how good or bad the data were, but it didn\u2019t really stick to be honest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing to the nervous system, writing to the body, that\u2019s where it\u2019s at. And I think everyone who\u2019s thinking about AI seems to also be thinking about that. The not so well-kept secret among the big AI companies. If you notice like a lot of them are starting to acquire biotech companies. There\u2019s an interest in biotech. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s about advanced search engines per se. I think it\u2019s about how are we going to control our own neural activity in brain states and bodily states? I\u2019m certain that\u2019s where it\u2019s all headed. So what\u2019s going to be the first thing to break through? There have been a number of things that have commercial vagal stimulators to try and calm people down. They haven\u2019t worked that well. I\u2019m going to piss some people off there, but they\u2019re weak sauce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Most of them are garbage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Most of them are.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>They don\u2019t actually stimulate the vagus nerve, most of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right. Or do it specifically enough or robustly. Totally agree. I think a really interesting place is if we look at sleep, like sleep states and measuring sleep states has gotten really good even with just heart rate and body motion. And now like with something like Eight Sleep, using AI, it\u2019s making temperature adjustments for you. This would be amazing to have for waking states. Let\u2019s just say during the course of this conversation, the room was dynamically changing in temperature. The seat was changing a little bit. I don\u2019t know, maybe my vagus was being stimulated a little bit just to keep me in whatever zone was optimal for this. It would just figure it out. AI would just figure it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that the big first use of writing to the nervous system is going to be for sleep. And I\u2019ll just give you three examples.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, there is a study where they looked at a rocking of a bed, a mechanical slow rocking of a bed and how that improves sleep, and it\u2019s remarkable. How much it accelerates the transition into sleep, how deep people\u2019s sleep gets, et cetera. They also did that study, how fast people need to walk back and forth while rocking their baby. Turns out a certain number of paces. There\u2019s a paper I can send you the reference in Cell Reports. Turns out parents figure out the ideal pace and I forget how many hertz it is, but it very closely mimics what the bedrocking needs to be. So you go, \u201cOkay, what is all this? Okay, we were born in water.\u201d No, yeah, that\u2019s not what it\u2019s about. That\u2019s from a sound ceremony. No disrespect to the sound ceremony. It\u2019s been just some pretty cool sound ceremony. The thing about this is in order to fall asleep, you need to forget your body position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Huge important step in falling asleep. And it turns out that there\u2019s a way to do this. There\u2019s this crazy eye movement thing that was published in Reader\u2019s Digest some time ago and went viral, even though viral wasn\u2019t around then. Where they told people to make themselves fall asleep by closing their eyes and slowly moving their eyes to one side, then the other side, then counterclockwise, then clockwise, then crossing their eyes and looking at their nose and then doing a long exhale. What in the world is this? I\u2019ve tried this. Yes, you generally find yourself waking up the next morning. It\u2019s wild, but the really cool thing happened when there are a couple of guys at MIT reached out and they\u2019re like, \u201cHey, we\u2019ve got this sleep mask. We\u2019d love for you to try it.\u201d It measures REM directly by looking at eye movements, and it can induce sleep in under six minutes. Like how? They\u2019re like, \u201cOh, it creates with stimulation behind the ears, it can stimulate eye movements and you forget your body position, you fall asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So it\u2019s affecting the vestibular system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Right. So the eyes are linked to the vestibular system through to control retinal slip. There\u2019s this whole thing like pitch, yaw, and roll. As you move through space, you need to stabilize images in the retina. So your cerebellum in your vestibular ocular pathways, there\u2019s a couple synapses in between. I\u2019m very familiar with this because this is what my lab used to work on for a significant portion of time. I figure out which retinal cells and which targets in the brainstem and on and on. Anyway, flocculus of the cerebellum, but this eye mask is really cool, you put it on. I have no relationship to this company. I think they sort of approached me, but I didn\u2019t do anything with them, but I think it\u2019s just really, really cool. You put the eye mask on and you feel a little twitch behind your ear, you adjust it down so you don\u2019t feel it anymore. And what\u2019s wild is your eyes just start moving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I feel like that would keep me up. I guess maybe you get used to it after a night or two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>And it makes you feel very sleepy. So there\u2019s also a relationship between certain eye movements and overall arousal state. Now, this stuff, I don\u2019t want to call it crude, but this is the first foray into writing to the nervous system to induce a brain state. And what I love about it is it\u2019s so objective. Again, I\u2019m not selling this thing, but if you were to try this thing, you\u2019re like, \u201cThis didn\u2019t really help me. I want my money back guarantee.\u201d You\u2019re good. Whereas a lot of the stuff for plasticity, for focus, it\u2019s subjective. And it\u2019s subject to the placebo effect. I think sleep have been the first place where reading from the nervous system has been really prominent with Ouras and WHOOPs and Eight Sleeps and things of that sort. I think sleep is also going to be the place where writing to the nervous system is going to happen first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, let\u2019s talk about writing in a different way. You are a podcast native, and yet the author of the upcoming book, <em>Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body<\/em>. What should people expect in the book?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>So an introduction that defines how to use the book. I\u2019ve always liked those, how to use this book. And my backstory and the energetic drive, the spiritual drive behind wanting to do a book that teaches science and is about health and wellbeing and performance. People can skip it or they can read it. It doesn\u2019t really matter to me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first chapter is all about sleep. So you\u2019re going to learn the science of sleep. And you\u2019ll learn the various protocols from most important, most effective, to still effective but lesser important protocols for sleep. And most importantly, why they work based on the science you just learned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then a chapter on exercise, defines the program we talked about. Also a section on mobility. A lot of people talk about walking in steps, but really identifies what\u2019s needed there, what the science actually says. A section on cardiovascular exercise and how to structure that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Again, the goal being, yes, I think that program will work exceptionally well for anybody, but the principles to fall out of it are not, you need to do this class or that class. Once a week, get your heart rate as close to maxed out as you can in a controlled, safe way. Once a week, do this. Okay. And why and what the benefits are, what the science says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The part about resistance training was also a lot of fun to really dig into the now excellent science that\u2019s been done about what actually triggers hypertrophy and strength. Turns out you can do anywhere from five to 30 repetitions as long as you take them to failure and still get the same hypertrophy results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But then you have to be practical. You step back and go like, \u201cAm I going to do 30 reps of bicep curls? Maybe. But am I going to do 30 reps of squats to failure?\u201d Well, those first 20, people don\u2019t often acknowledge that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>If you haven\u2019t tried that, have fun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. And it\u2019s very hard to keep perfect form with high repetitions. It\u2019s actually easier to do with moderate to heavy weights, heavy for the individual that is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Third chapter is about stress and stress mitigation. That was a fun one because that was an active area of my lab for a long time. The next chapter is about light, talking about how LEDs are not necessarily a problem. Can\u2019t get incandescents anymore. But if you\u2019re not getting enough long wavelength light, how that\u2019s problematic for a number of things related to mitochondrial health, retinal health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Is long wave light a decent way to think of natural light? Or?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. So the sun is full spectrum. Everything from UV all the way up to red, near infrared, and infrared. The heat from the sun being infrared. When the sun is low in the sky, you\u2019re going to glean more of the long wavelength light and less UV because of something called Rayleigh scattering. That\u2019s why the sun appears more yellow or orange when it\u2019s low in the sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The goal really is to get as much long wavelength light. It\u2019s the high quality protein of light without getting too much UV. You need some UV. The challenge is in the middle of the day when the sun is overhead, you\u2019re going to get full spectrum light, but you\u2019re going to get too much, many people will get too much UV.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now this is controversial. People are like, \u201cOh, sunlight. The more sunlight you get, the longer you live.\u201d Time of day that you get your sunlight is important, not just for setting of circadian clocks, but for other things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also talk about how long wavelength light can actually penetrate through a t-shirt like yours, go all the way through your body. And because long wavelength light is absorbed by water, it actually is absorbed in the portions of your cells that enhance movement on the electron chain in mitochondria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This notion that we are batteries is kind of true. If you ever go snorkeling, you\u2019ll notice after about 10 feet or so, the red fish disappear. They didn\u2019t disappear. The red was absorbed in the top meters of water. And actually a lot of animals and fish will come up to the surface because there\u2019s a lot of interesting nutrients happening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Long wavelength light bounces off greenery. If you were to put infrared goggles on during the daytime, the greenery is just reflecting long wavelength light like crazy. Which is weird because it\u2019s green, which means it should be absorbing the long wavelength light. I talk a little bit about light and electromagnetic energy in a way that should be accessible to people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that chapter was like, I was like, \u201cThis is so much fun.\u201d I haven\u2019t thought about the sun that way in a long time, but the goal is for people to understand the difference between red light therapy. If you\u2019re under a lot of LED lights or in front of screens at night, why it\u2019s important to try and get some sunlight during the day to offset some of that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not just because of the sleep effects, but what you don\u2019t want is a lot of short wave LED light without long wavelength light in your 24-hour cycle or daylight cycle. It can lead to myopia, lengthening of the eyeball, which means the image focuses to the front of the retina, so why people wear corrective lenses. And a few other things about the relationship between light on the skin and hormone production and why that\u2019s helpful in longevity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okay, that\u2019s five. All right. Then chapter six is about neuroplasticity, learning and ways to increase alertness and I go through it all. All the behavioral tools, the pharmacology, I talk about Adderall, Sunosi. I talk about how throughout history people have, since they discovered it, have found ways to get caffeine and nicotine into their system. They will not quit doing this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I talked about the relative benefits and risks of these different things, delivery mechanisms. And I talk about the real science of neuroplasticity and that of course is an old love of mine and wheelhouse of mine. So to really talk about what it takes to do, I call them learning belts. If you\u2019re going to sit down and do something hard, I mean, I think that\u2019s what the writing of the book was for me is the way I described it. Is the need to experience that internal friction and how important that is, not just for the relief of when it\u2019s over, but how important that is for brain longevity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I really hope people will take it upon themselves to learn something new. I know this was a active area for you. Learning tango, learning kickboxing, learning so many things. To cook. And just the incredible value of that for life enrichment, but also for brain health and longevity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For sure. Even multilingualism is correlated, to be clear, correlated to longer health span.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>That\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There\u2019s some really interesting stuff out there. So yeah, keep learning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>There\u2019s an Instagram page. I\u2019ll find it. I discovered it in the wee hours of travel. I got to find this kid\u2019s name. And all he does is he takes three days to learn things from complete beginner to extreme performer of one thing, like the hardest clarinet song.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And you see him start at the beginning, he\u2019s all, \u201cExcuse me, I\u2019m spitting everywhere.\u201d But that\u2019s what he did too. And then at the end, he\u2019s playing this clarinet. He\u2019s like, \u201cYes.\u201d Or can he do juggling a soccer ball? Can you do that for 100 kicks and then kick it into the basket and swish it?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He just shows how if you just completely pour yourself into things, you can learn this stuff. But the range of things that he\u2019s doing is totally outrageous. I don\u2019t know him, but if he had faked one of them, you might be able to detect it. I don\u2019t think he did, but he\u2019s just music, sport, all sorts of cool, cool stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Give us the handle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019ll find it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>We\u2019ll put it in the show notes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>It\u2019s really, really cool. This kid is so\u2014he\u2019s got that energy. It reminds me a lot of your experiments in neuroplasticity. When you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m going to play a drum solo in front of a ton of people.\u201d Put the pressure on and it\u2019s just so cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then the last chapter, I had a hard time titling because it\u2019s not about relationships. I thought about calling it relationship to self. It\u2019s really about personal development, like how to structure all the information that\u2019s out there. And it has a number of things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has a section on how to navigate grief based on the science and practices of navigating grief. Which those practices, just even the understanding of what grief is, this remapping of our understanding of what\u2019s actionable and what\u2019s not. I mean, it really is an activation of the reward circuitry that can\u2019t be fulfilled. It\u2019s like as if I was dying of thirst and I\u2019m trying to reach for this and I can\u2019t get it. That\u2019s what grief really is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Occasionally I\u2019ll get a call from my graduate advisor who passed and I was very close with, from her daughter. She uses her phone number and it still comes up as her mom\u2019s name. And there\u2019s this moment where I\u2019m like\u2014and I\u2019m like, \u201cOh.\u201d And you feel this sink. I love talking to her daughter. She actually became a neuroscientist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But grief is this perpetual feeling of like, \u201cOh, I can\u2019t smell the person or the thing.\u201d There are their glasses and I can\u2019t do anything. There\u2019s this yearning piece and how that needs to remap. And the kind of work that we can actually do to, in a healthy way, remap that grief circuitry. And then how the notion of somebody that we lost, or a pet perhaps, gets reframed in our mind as an not actionable now, but we still have a relationship with kind of concept. And to me, that was an important thing to include.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the big one for me was there seems to be this contradiction in the self-help literature and psychology. Which is about half of the stuff you see is like, \u201cGet after it.\u201d Like, \u201cSuck it up, fulfill your roles in life. Don\u2019t be a lazy piece of shit. Exercise, do all\u2014\u201d And then the other half is like, \u201cDon\u2019t just do and drift from yourself, your true self, your core self, your essential self.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Yeah. So I think many years ago I could have really used this chapter. That was basically it. It was like I could have used all the chapters. I had sleep issues, so I could have used that chapter. I could have used the stress chapter, all of it. A lot of the science wasn\u2019t known, so this book would have been impossible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when Jim Hollis, this incredible Jungian psychoanalyst came on the podcast and he was 84 years old then, and 86 now. And I expected him to talk about essential self and heart\u2019s desire. He wrote Under Saturn\u2019s Shadow on the healing and trauma of men. He also wrote <em>The Eden Project<\/em> about relationships and the struggle of relationships and romantic relationships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I expected him to give me all this kind of high level stuff, deep heartfelt stuff. And he basically nailed it. He was like, \u201cYou have to shut up, suit up, and show up.\u201d And I go, \u201cOkay, that sounds like kind of boomer advice.\u201d He goes, \u201cNo, but it\u2019s not what you think.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cStop complaining. Somebody\u2019s definitely suffering more than you.\u201d That one\u2019s about gratitude.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it\u2019s not exactly shut up. It\u2019s be grateful for something, you\u2019re alive. You have to get to that level when you\u2019re suffering. It\u2019s like, \u201cCool.\u201d And it ratchets up from there. There\u2019s a lot of data on gratitude as we know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there\u2019s suit up. We have to be prepared. We need to learn to prepare ourselves, prepare. It\u2019s not just about clean your room. I mean that too, but it\u2019s about like we have to prepare ourselves to show up. We have to get into a head space. We have to develop processes that allow us to show up in our different roles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we need to show up for those roles. We need to fulfill roles. And I\u2019d done a lot of role fulfillment in my life, as you have too, and it\u2019s super important. If somebody\u2019s adrift, we have to do this. And he explains how critical this is to our psyche, how critical it is to our feelings of self-worth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then he also has this other thing about how critically important it is to ideally once a day, but at least a few times a week, to get out of the stimulus and response that is shut up, suit up, show up. And really touch into what\u2019s true for you, like what he calls your heart\u2019s desires.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was more of the Hollis that I expected. And how just quieting the mind, not feeling like you have to do anything in that moment, allows things to come up from your unconscious that lets you really ask yourself. And he used these examples like, \u201cIs the 40-year marriage I\u2019ve been in really the one I want to be in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because I made the example of like, \u201cHow beautiful is that?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, but there are a lot of people who end life after these long marriages.\u201d And then they\u2019re like, \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to be in it.\u201d The tragedy of that, right? And how much better it would have been that people can identify who they really are, what they really want, like really touch into what\u2019s important to them. And I was like, \u201cShit, this sounds so simple and yet that\u2019s hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, simple, not easy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Simple, not easy. And how important it is to do both. And I thought, well, this chapter might be boringly simple, but that\u2019s the important work. And you could take any number of different self-help books and kind of bend them into those, or different chapters into those.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So the book, again, <em>Protocols<\/em>, easy to remember. <em>Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body<\/em>. The pub date?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>September 15th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>September 15. And I think most people will know at this point, but where should people find more about Dr. Huberman online?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Oh, thanks. If you put Huberman Lab into the internet, you\u2019ll probably see some stuff that\u2019s not true and you\u2019ll probably also find a website called Huberman Lab, where we have AI links to episodes. And the book is going to be wherever standard stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019ll find it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>You can find the book. And the Huberman Lab site is actually, I have to say, the team has done a great job with that. It\u2019ll take you to specific timestamps. If you want to know about dopamine and exercise, it\u2019ll take you to those specific timestamps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m really proud of the team, they put up with me while writing this book and all the rest. And yeah, I mean, I\u2019m out there. And I also am really excited about the young upstarts who are coming for our jobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You can have mine. Andrew\u2019s going to fight it out with you guys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>I\u2019m not going to fight it out. When you watch the Dean Potter movie, you will realize why it is a bad idea to try and prevent the person coming up the ladder. Don\u2019t kick out the rungs behind you. And in his case, especially if that person is Alex Honnold, you\u2019re going to lose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Andrew, great to see you, as always.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Great to see you, man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Thanks for taking the time, man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Thank you. I have tremendous respect and admiration for you. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be podcasting or here at all were it not for you. I\u2019m a fan. I consider you a friend. I\u2019m very, very, very grateful to you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, thanks, man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Thank you for everything you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. We should break bread at some point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>While I\u2019m in this neck of the planet. And for everybody watching, as always, tim.blog\/podcast, Huberman, just look for the most recent. You\u2019ll be able to find all the links. We will have a lot of links to studies, to MIT eye masks, we\u2019re going to have, if they exist. I\u2019m not even sure they\u2019re online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Andrew Huberman: <\/strong>They do, actually. I think they\u2019re a small company, but yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, for sure. So we\u2019ll link to everything. You can find it there. And as per usual, until next time, be a bit kinder than as necessary to others. Dramatic flourish with the eyeglasses back on, but also to yourself. And until next time. Thanks for tuning in. See you next time.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 id=\"Andrew-Huberman-Protocols-legal-conditions\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS:<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Tim Ferriss owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WHAT YOU\u2019RE WELCOME TO DO:<\/em>\u00a0<em>You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g.,\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>LA Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>The Guardian<em>), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and\/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to \u201cThe Tim Ferriss Show\u201d and link back to the tim.blog\/podcast URL. For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED:<\/em>\u00a0<em>No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Tim Ferriss\u2019 name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another\u2019s products or services. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Tim Ferriss from\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>the media room on tim.blog<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0or (obviously) license photos of Tim Ferriss from Getty Images, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Dr. Andrew Huberman, (IG:\u00a0@hubermanlab), a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}