LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman Question & Answer in Chicago, IL

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Brain health in later life rides on vascular health

  Asked by someone about to turn 70, Huberman's answer was the one he gives everyone: the brain is a heavy fuel consumer, so whatever keeps arteries and capillaries clear helps it. Borrowing from Peter Attia, he cites about 150 to 200 minutes per week of zone 2 cardio, movement at which you can just barely hold a conversation, plus resistance training two or three times per week for everyone.

• 02

  Load-bearing exercise and strength may protect cognition

  Load-bearing movement releases hormones from bone that cross the blood-brain barrier and may support neurons in areas such as the hippocampus. He flags that this extends mostly animal data to humans, with some human data emerging. He mentions a new paper from Andy Galpin's lab and collaborators correlating cognitive health with strength, and notes that weakening grip and growing left-right grip asymmetry track with cognitive decline.

• 03

  Fine control of the extremities is a marker of nervous-system health

  Floppy feet and an inability to extend or spread the toes are among many correlates of dementia. Newborns are tested for the Babinski reflex for the same reason. Huberman, who has broken one foot several times, has been using a toe spreader: painful at first, but improving toe spreading gives more foot stability and pain-free movement.

• 04

  For shift workers, consistency and light matter most

  Shift work is bad for a diurnal species, and swing shifts that keep changing are the worst, so try to keep one schedule for at least two weeks. To wake up, get bright light in your eyes, sunlight or artificial, mainly because it acutely suppresses melatonin. He prefers an inexpensive 900 lux LED over costly daylight simulators.

• 05

  Sleep when you can if the schedule is chronic

  For a long-term pattern such as a firefighter's 24 hours on and 48 off, or new parenthood, grab whatever sleep you can. For a one-off disruption such as a trip to Europe, there is no need to maximize sleep; stay with the local schedule instead.

• 06

  Hypnosis combines narrow focus with deep relaxation

  Drawing on Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel's work, Huberman describes clinical hypnosis as self-directed rather than stage hypnosis. Normally plasticity requires intense focus followed later by deep rest; hypnosis marries the two states, which may speed neuroplasticity. In highly hypnotizable people, success rates for smoking cessation and pain relief are impressive. He wishes it had a better name, the same reason he rebranded yoga nidra as NSDR.

• 07

  Psychedelics likely work by shifting neuromodulators, and the risks are real

  Rewiring ultimately comes from shifts in dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and acetylcholine. Psilocybin is structurally very similar to serotonin and activates specific serotonin receptors; roughly 12 to 20 good-sized trials at places such as Johns Hopkins, UCSF and Switzerland suggest benefits for treatment-resistant depression, done with preparatory and integration sessions. An open question is whether the subjective trip matters or only the serotonin. He calls microdosing data unconvincing, MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD more robust, and says kids should absolutely not use psychedelics, nor anyone predisposed to bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

• 08

  Meditation sharpens focus but can disrupt sleep near bedtime

  Wendy Suzuki's work shows 10 to 13 minutes of daily meditation improves memory and focus. Footnotes in those papers indicate meditating close to bedtime can impair sleep, because meditation is a focusing exercise. For trouble sleeping, including falling back asleep in the middle of the night, he recommends NSDR instead.

• 09

  NSDR can partly offset lost sleep, though Matt Walker disagrees

  Walker would say nothing replaces sleep. Huberman's read is that 10 to 20 or 30 minutes of NSDR each morning after a short night restores some of the lost feeling of wakefulness. A study with the Stanford sleep lab is underway, and some military units that cannot sleep rely on such tools, though they would prefer 8 to 10 hours of sleep.

• 10

  Daylight saving time is anti-biology

  Citing chronobiologist Samer Hattar at the NIMH, Huberman says the time change increases car crashes, heart attacks and depression, and that claims it reduces evening crime are unsubstantiated. View low-angle morning and evening sunlight, which the Stanford ophthalmology chair confirmed carries little cataract or macular risk, longer on cloudy days, or use artificial light.