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Maximize Productivity, Physical & Mental Health With Daily Tools | Huberman Lab Essentials

By Andrew Huberman

Summary

## Key takeaways - **Morning Walk for Anxiety Reduction**: Engage in forward ambulation, like walking, outdoors to experience 'optic flow'. This visual input calms the amygdala, reducing anxiety and promoting an alert yet calm state. [02:26], [03:24] - **Delay Caffeine for Sustained Energy**: Wait 90 to 120 minutes after waking to consume caffeine. This strategy prevents an afternoon crash by allowing adenosine to build up naturally before caffeine blocks its sleep-inducing effects. [06:07], [07:24] - **Optimize Workspace for Alertness**: Position your computer screen at eye level or slightly higher. Looking down, especially with eyelids partially closed, decreases alertness and increases sleepiness. [08:27], [09:15] - **Leverage Temperature Rise for Focus**: Schedule demanding cognitive tasks 4-6 hours after your temperature minimum. Your body temperature naturally rises after this point, supporting increased focus and cognitive performance. [11:54], [13:45] - **Dinner Carbs for Sleep Transition**: Consume starchy carbohydrates for dinner to increase serotonin levels. This aids in the transition to sleep, as serotonin is crucial for falling asleep and staying asleep. [21:40], [22:52] - **Hot Bath Accelerates Sleep Onset**: Taking a hot bath or shower before bed can help you fall asleep faster. The subsequent cooling down period your body undergoes after the heat exposure accelerates the natural drop in body temperature needed for sleep. [24:51], [25:30]

Topics Covered

  • Start Your Day Calm, Focused, and Anxiety-Free.
  • Fuel Your Brain: Fasting, Smart Meals, and Movement.
  • Leverage Your Brain's 90-Minute Focus Cycles.
  • Your Daily Cycle is Key to Optimal Brain Function.
  • Optimize Evening Habits for Deeper, Restorative Sleep.

Full Transcript

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health and

performance. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm

a professor of neurobiology and

opthalmology at Stamford School of

Medicine. I decided that we would hold

office hours. Office hours in the

university setting are when students

come to the professor's office or you

meet outdoors on campus or in the

classroom to review the material and

questions from lecture in more detail.

Now, unfortunately, we don't have the

opportunity to meet face to face in real

life, but nonetheless, you've been

sending your questions, putting them in

the comments section on YouTube, etc.

And I prepared a number of answers to

the questions that have shown up most

frequently. Now, in order to provide

context and structure to the way that we

will address these questions, I've

arranged the science and science-based

protocols that relate to various aspects

of life such as mood, exercise, sleep

waking, anxiety, creativity, etc. into

the context of a day. Selecting the unit

of a day in order to deliver this

science information and protocols is not

a haphazard decision on my part.

It's actually the case that every cell

in our body, every organ in our body

and our brain is modulated or changes

across the 24-hour day in a very regular

and predictable rhythm. And so

selecting the unit of the day is not

just a practical one, but it's one

that's related to our deeper biology.

So, let's talk about how to apply

quality peer-reviewed science to your

day and how to optimize everything from

sleep to learning, creativity, meal

timing, etc. I'm going to do this in the

context of my day and what I typically

do. I tend to wake up sometime around

6:00 a.m. 6:30. The first thing I do

after I wake up is I take the pen that's

on my nightstand and the pad of paper on

my nightstand and I write down the time

in which I woke up. The reason for

writing down what time I wake up is

because I want to know what's called my

temperature minimum. I don't care what

my actual temperature is. I care when my

lowest temperature is. And I know that

that lowest temperature is approximately

2 hours before my average wake up time.

The second thing I do after I wake up is

to get into forward ambulation, which is

just nerd speak for taking a walk.

There's a phenomenon whereby when we

generate our own forward motion, forward

ambulation, visual images pass by us on

our eyes, so-called optic flow

experiencing visual flow has a powerful

effect on the nervous system. The effect

it has is essentially to quiet or reduce

the amount of neural activity in this

brain structure called the amygdala. And

many of you have probably heard about

the amygdala for its role in anxiety and

fear and threat detection. And indeed

the amydala is part of the network in

the brain that generates feelings of

fear and threat and anxiety. It does a

bunch of other things too, but that's

one of its primary functions. Forward

ambulation, walking or biking or running

and generating optic flow in particular

has this incredible property of lowering

activity in the amydala and thereby

reducing levels of anxiety. That walk is

a particularly important protocol each

day because it really serves to push my

neurology in the direction that I'd like

it to go, which is alert but not

anxious. I want to have a high degree of

focus and alertness because I'm soon

going to move into a bout of work. I

need to lean into the day. So, in order

to do that, I make sure that the walking

is done outdoors. I do it outdoors

because I also want sunlight in my eyes.

Getting sunlight in your eyes first

thing in the morning is absolutely vital

to mental and physical health. Even if

there's cloud cover, more photons, light

information are coming through that

cloud cover than would be coming from a

very bright indoor bulb. So getting

outside for a 10-minute walk or a

15-minute walk will basically ensure

that you're getting adequate stimulation

of these neurons in the eye that are

called the melanopsin, intrinsically

photosensitive ganglen cells. These are

neurons that convey to the brain that

it's daytime and it's time to be alert.

And it sets in motion a huge number of

biological cascades within every cell

and organ of your body from your liver

to your gut to your heart to your brain.

Early in the day, we experience a

natural and healthy bump in a hormone

called cortisol and promotes

wakefulness. It actually promotes a

healthy immune system. It's very

important that that pulse of cortisol

arrive early in the day. That pulse of

cortisol is going to happen once every

24 hours. No matter what, it's going to

happen. And you get to time it. How do

you time it? Primarily by when you view

bright sunlight. You can combine it with

the forward ambulation with the walk and

the optic flow that I talked about

before. And that's what I do each

morning to generate a sense of alertness

in my body and brain to generate a sense

of calm yet alert. So now we have a

first protocol which is to write down

the time of day that you wake up. The

second protocol is to get take a walk

first thing in the morning. And the

third protocol is woven in with that

walk, at least for me, which is to get

that sunlight exposure. I'm a big

believer based on quality peer-reviewed

data that hydration is essential for

mental performance. As many of you know

neurons require ionic flow. What that

means is neurons need sodium, they need

magnesium, and they need potassium in

order to function. We do tend to get

dehydrated at night. I try and make sure

that I'm hydrated early in the day

before I begin any work. So, I make

myself drink this water with a little

bit of sea salt. How much sea salt? If

you really want to get detailed, it's

you I suppose it's about half a

teaspoon. It's not much. At that point

I start craving caffeine, but I don't

drink that caffeine yet. I purposely

delay my caffeine intake to 90 minutes

to 120 minutes after I wake up. The

reason I delay caffeine is because one

of the factors that induces a sense of

sleepiness is the buildup of adenosine.

The buildup of adenosine accumulates the

longer we are awake. When you wake up in

the morning, your adenosine levels are

likely to be very low. However, caffeine

is an adenosine blocker. It's actually a

competitive antagonist for you

aicionados. sort of parks in the

receptor that adenosine normally would

park at and prevents adenosine from

acting on that receptor. That's why you

feel more alert. The reason for delaying

caffeine intake 90 minutes to 2 hours

after waking is I want to make sure that

I don't have a late afternoon or even

early afternoon crash from caffeine. One

of the best ways to ensure a caffeine

crash is to drink a bunch of caffeine

block all those adenosine receptors, and

then by early or late afternoon when

that caffeine starts to wear off and

gets dislodged from the

receptors, a lower level of adenosine is

able to create a greater level of

sleepiness. Delaying caffeine at 90

minutes to two hours optimizes this

relationship between adenosine and

wakefulness and sleepiness in a way that

really provides a nice consistent arc of

energy throughout the day and brings

energy down as I'm headed toward sleep

and falling asleep. My primary objective

early in the day is to get into a mode

of being focused yet alert so that I can

get work done. I found that the best way

for me to achieve that state is through

fasting. So, I don't eat anything until

about 11:00 a.m. or 12

noon. Fasting increases levels of

adrenaline, also called epinephrine, in

the brain and body. And when our levels

of epinephrine and adrenaline are

increased, we learn better. We can focus

better. You don't want

epinephrine, aka adrenaline, too high.

That feels like stress and panic. You

get jittery. You can't focus. But in its

optimal range, adrenaline really

provides a heightened sense of focus and

the ability to encode, meaning bring in

and retain remember information. Next, I

want to talk about what I'm doing while

I'm working. A couple of things for

optimizing workspace that are grounded

in neuroscience and physiology. I've

talked before about the fact that when

our eyes are directed upward, it creates

a state of heightened alertness. And

this has a relationship to the brain

stem neurons that create alertness and

their control over the muscles of the

eye and believe it or not the

eyelids. The point here is that you can

optimize your workstation in a physical

way that leverages this aspect of the

visual system and your level of

alertness. Try and position your screen

or your tablet, whatever device you

happen to be working on, at least at eye

level and ideally slightly higher. Most

people are looking down at their

computer or tablet or are angling their

eyes at their screen at about 30°. When

we look down, when our eyelids are

slightly closed, it tends to decrease

our levels of alertness and increase our

levels of sleepiness. So we're now at

the description of my day and these

protocols in which I would do a 90inute

bout of work. Now why 90 minutes? Well

the brain is going through these 90minut

so-called altradian cycles throughout

the entire day and night. Every 90

minutes we shift over from being very

alert to being less alert and then back

to alert again. Here's how it works. At

the start of one of these 90-minute

altradian cycles, my brain is not quite

engaged in whatever it is I'm trying to

do, but I set a timer for 90 minutes and

I try and get a strong bout of work done

inside of that 90 minutes with the full

understanding that the entire 90 minutes

is not going to be uniform in terms of

my ability to focus. So, the goal is to

get into what I call the tunnel, to

really get into a tunnel of quality

work. The brain loves that state, but

it's very hard for many of us to access.

My phone is absolutely off. It's not on

airplane mode. It's absolutely off

during this time. In addition, I use

low-level white noise. White noise

which is essentially all frequencies of

sound or all frequencies of sound that

we can perceive mixed up kind of

randomly. There's no structure to it

turned on at a low volume puts the brain

into a state that's optimal for learning

and workflow. So everything about this

90-minute block, from the low levels of

white noise to the position of my

computer, how I'm standing and where my

eyes are positioned is geared towards

putting me in this tunnel of work. And I

have to say that while it can be a

challenge to try and achieve this state

and this tunnel of work, some days, you

start to get kind of addicted to it. It

feels really good. It's like a workout

for the mind. And it uh is something

that as you exit that 90 minutes, you

really feel like you've accomplished a

lot because often um you have and it

just feels deeply satisfying. And I'm

convinced that that's because of the

release of neurom modulators like

dopamine and the uh norepinephrine

that's circulating in your system. And I

want to be clear that I'm not perfect

about this 90 minutes. Occasionally I

get drawn away, but I really try and

achieve this most if not every day that

I'm alive because for me that work

session is kind of holy. There's a

powerful way in which you can place the

timing of this 90minute workout in an

optimal

way. You have access to a very important

piece of data that dictates when this

bout should start more or less and when

it should

end. That piece of data is your

temperature minimum. If you're somebody

who wakes up on average at 7:00 a.m.

well then your temperature minimum is

5:00 a.m., you can be reasonably sure

that your best work is going to be done

anywhere from 4 to 6 hours after your

temperature minimum. How do I know this?

How do I know this relationship between

temperature minimum and focus cognition?

Well, temperature minimum defines the

trough the the nadir as they say of the

of your temperature across the 24-hour

cycle. And immediately after that, your

temperature will start to rise. That

temperature rise is actually what

triggers the initial cortisol release

that you experience and wakes you up

further. And then, of course, that

sunlight that you're getting is going to

further enhance that healthy release of

cortisol. That cortisol will then

provide fuel, if you will, for that

increase in temperature. And your body

will continue to increase in temperature

throughout the day toward the afternoon.

What you're trying to do in this in this

idea of optimizing this 90minute workout

to a particular time of day is catch the

portion of the steepest slope of that

temperature rise. So if you're somebody

who wakes up at 8:00 a.m. each morning

your temperature minimum is 6:00 a.m.

Chances are you're going to want to

start this workout somewhere around

10:00 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. Now, some

people wake up and feel very alert first

thing in the morning. and they can

really do their best work first thing in

the morning. Please, if that's you

continue to do that. Leverage that time.

Use that time. But if you're somebody

who struggles to find focus, definitely

let your physiology and this rise in

your body temperature support your

efforts to focus rather than trying to

do your best work at times of day when

your physiology is actually directing

your body and your brain toward defocus

and towards being more lethargic. It

just is setting yourself up for success

when you try and capture this rising

phase of your temperature. Data going

back to the

1990s supports the idea that physical

movement of particular kinds can support

brain health and brain function both in

the immediate term and in the long term.

So after I've finished a bout of work

this 90-minute bout of work, I force

myself to do some sort of physical

exercise that is going to be supportive

of my brain health and brain function

and organ health and bodily function in

general. Now there are various forms of

physical activity or what we call

exercise, but those can generally be

batched into two categories. First is

strength and hypertrophy work. So

physical movements that are designed to

make you stronger and/or make your

muscles

larger. There's also endurance work

physical exercise and movements that are

designed to allow you to do more work

over time or to extend the amount of

time that you can do work of any kind

both physical and mental. The data all

point to the fact that working out hard

for longer than an hour can actually be

detrimental because of the way that it

raises cortisol. And cortisol can be a

good thing if it's appropriately timed

and in the appropriate low levels, but

you don't want to have your cortisol

levels up throughout the day or have big

spikes of cortisol repeatedly. So

keeping workouts relatively short can

definitely help with that. Endurance

work and strength training or

hypertrophy training done in combination

meaning not necessarily in the same

workout but done across the week is

immensely beneficial for the production

of things like brain derived neutrophic

factor for limiting uh inflammatory

cytoines like IL6 for promoting

anti-inflammatory cytoines like IL10

provided that exercise is of the proper

duration and that it's not so intense

that you're actually creating damage to

the various systems of the body. What

about the structure of the actual

workouts? Well, approximately 80% of the

resistance training you do should be

resistance training that doesn't go to

what they call failure, where you can't

actually move the resistance anymore.

The other 20% can be of the higher

intensity to failure type training. That

8020 rule of less than failure and work

to failure in the resistance exercise

regime can be transported or translated

to the endurance exercise portion by

focusing on that thing that we're

familiar with which is the burn. When

we're running hard or cycling hard

we'll experience a kind of burning of

the muscles that's associated with the

lactate system. And actually the lactate

system is its own form of fuel for the

brain. And so there's increasing

interest in generating the lactate or

pushing past that lactate threshold for

small portions 20% or so of endurance

work in order to support brain health

and function. So on any given day I

finish that work block and I train. I do

some sort of resistance or endurance

training. I put those on alternate days

or different days rather. So, we've now

talked about the arc that spans all the

way from waking to a morning bout of

focused work to physical

training. I have not mentioned ingesting

anything or nutrients. One of the most

common questions I get are what should I

eat for my brain? Well, um, ironically

enough, uh, one of the best things you

can do for your brain is to not eat.

But, of course, we all have to eat

sooner or later. So, let's talk about

food timing first. As I mentioned, I eat

my first meal sometime around noon, plus

or minus an hour. The volume of food is

also

important. If you eat a large volume of

anything, because it diverts blood to

your gut, you will feel lethargic and

you will have less blood going to your

brain. That seems like a simple and

trivial fact, but if you want to be able

to think, you can't ingest large volumes

of anything into your gut. So for lunch

I do emphasize slightly lower

carbohydrate or low carbohydrate intake

for the simple reason that adrenaline

and dopamine and their associated neurom

modulators are going to support

alertness. So for me, I fast up until

about noon. Then I eat a lunch that

consists of some sort of protein thing

like a some meat or some chicken or some

salmon and some vegetables, etc. And if

I've exercised previously, which I do as

I mentioned five days a week, then I

will ingest some starches. I'll ingest

some red bread, excuse me, or rice or

oatmeal and butter and nuts and things

like that. But I will keep the total

amount of carbohydrate a little bit on

the low side or if I haven't trained, I

won't have any carbohydrate at all. Not

because I'm ketogenic, but because

starches cause the release of serotonin

in the brain and lend themselves to a

state of sleepiness. Now, what about

components of foods that are not about

alertness, but are about mood? We did an

entire episode on mood and food. And

it's very clear based on now dozens of

studies that ingesting sufficient levels

of omega-3 fatty acids is going to

support healthy mood and even can act as

an

anti-depressant. Ingesting at least

1,000 milligs per day of the EPA form of

essential fatty acid is as effective as

prescription anti-depressants in

relieving depression. And if you're

somebody who requires prescription

anti-depressants Prozacs Oloft etc.

it can allow people to take lower doses

of those medications. A key aspect to

the midday meal, if you want that meal

to benefit you, is to take a brief walk

afterwards. It turns out that brief

walks of 5 to 30 minutes after ingesting

food can accelerate metabolism and

actually can accelerate and improve

nutrient utilization which is

essentially the same as metabolism. But

nonetheless, that's something that I do

after I finish my noon meal. I do force

myself to stand up and go outside and

take a brief walk. That also gets me

again into optic flow. It also has

another benefit which is that I am

giving my brain and thereby my body more

information about light and time of day

which is always better than less

information about light and time of day.

A key protocol for sleep health and

wakefulness and metabolism and hormone

health is viewing light in the

afternoon. So here's the reason for

doing this.

As we progress into the evening hours

there's a phenomenon where our retina

our eyes, become very sensitive to light

such that if we view bright lights or

even not so bright lights between the

hours of 1000 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., that

is strongly disruptive, very disruptive

for our dopamine production. It can

really screw up our sleep. But if you

can get outside and see the sun as it

arcs down, or if you can't see the sun

directly, get some sunlight in your eyes

in the afternoon hours, so maybe 400

p.m.ish. What it does is it lowers the

sensitivity of your retina in the late

evening hours, which allows you to

buffer yourself against the negative

effects of bright light later at night.

Now, we haven't talked too much about

melatonin, but melatonin is a hormone

that is inhibited by light. Melatonin is

the hormone that allows you to fall

asleep easily. Now, I'm not talking

about supplementing melatonin. I'm

talking about melatonin that you

naturally produce from your pineal. So

the protocol is very simple. Get outside

in the afternoon or evening for 10 to 30

minutes. Take your sunglasses off. So

get that afternoon light. So, what

you'll probably notice is that the

optimal protocols for optimizing your

brain and body health and performance

and sleep, etc. are actually really

simple. But just because they're simple

does not mean that they are not

powerful. In fact, they are very

powerful because they leverage the most

powerful technology that exists, which

is your nervous system. What we are

talking about today are really basic

things that we can all do that can steer

our neurology and our biology in the

directions that are going to support

workflow that are going to support

hormones that are going to support brain

function. So at some point in the

evening I eat that thing that we call

dinner. And while it feels sort of

strange to talk about my dinner, the

reason I want to talk about my dinner

and what I eat for dinner is that for me

dinner of course is about eating. but

also about optimizing the transition to

sleep. So my dinner generally is

comprised of things that are going to

support rest and deep sleep and that

means starchy carbohydrates. It's

absolutely clear that one of the major

ways that we can increase serotonin

which helps in the transition to sleep

is by ingesting starchy carbohydrates.

So my dinner is carbohydrates and some

protein. So maybe some chicken or fish

or something like that, maybe some eggs

or sometimes just pasta or just rice and

vegetables. And that's because I enjoy

those foods, but also because I want to

increase the amount of serotonin in my

brain so that I can actually fall asleep

that night. Many people who are on low

carbohydrate diets struggle with falling

and staying asleep. And that's because

it's hard to achieve heightened levels

of serotonin, which are necessary to

enter sleep. I should also mention that

melatonin and serotonin fall in the same

pathway. They are related hormones and

neurom modulators. Essentially, what

we're talking about is a system that's

biasing us towards rest and relaxation

as opposed to wakefulness. You might

ask, well, can't I just take serotonin?

Can't I just take 5HTP or a precursor to

serotonin or tryptophan? And indeed, you

can. However, many people, including

myself, find that when they supplement

with serotonin in the evening or at

night that can cause problems in the

architecture or the structure of sleep

can cause a lot of people, including me

to fall asleep very fast, sleep very

deeply for three or four hours, and then

wake up and have a terrible time falling

back asleep. And that effect, at least

for me, has u can last several days.

It's really disruptive. So I don't like

to supplement with anything that is

directly dopamine or a precursor to

dopamine at any time or directly

serotonin or a precursor to serotonin.

Rather, there are other things that can

enhance the transition to sleep safely

which we will talk about in a few

minutes. But the evening meal consists

largely of carbohydrates for that

specific purpose of generating a sense

of calm. And of course carbohydrates are

delicious. And because I'm doing

physical training and presumably you are

as well. I hope you are because it's so

beneficial to one's health. That's also

going to replenish my glycogen stores

which is the one of the primary fuel

sources for moving one's muscles and

moving around and doing exercise as well

as for the brain and for cognitive

function. So let's talk about sleep and

how to access sleep. One way to do that

is to leverage the drop in temperature

that's necessary to fall and stay

asleep. So as I mentioned earlier in the

early parts of the day after waking our

body temperature is rising and that

continues throughout the day and then

sometime late in the afternoon our

temperature peaks and then it starts to

drop. That drop in temperature of 1 to

3° is vitally important for us to be

able to fall asleep

easily. One way that we can decrease our

transition time into sleep is to

accelerate that drop in temperature. And

one way to accelerate that drop in

temperature somewhat counterintuitively

is to use hot baths, hot showers, or if

you have access to one, a sauna. Now

this is counterintuitive, but actually

if you are to get into a sauna or a hot

shower or a hot bath and then get out

your body is going to engage particular

mechanisms for cooling itself off that

are going to allow you to drop your

temperature more quickly and fall asleep

more easily. It is absolutely true that

keeping the room very dark is

beneficial. The other thing is keeping

the room cool. The reason keeping the

room cool is useful for getting into and

staying asleep is that throughout the

night there are phases of sleep where

you are paralyzed so-called REM sleep.

That's a healthy paralysis. So you

presumably so you can't act out your

dreams. But there are portions of the

night where you can move. And one of the

more important movements that you do in

the middle of the night is put your hand

out or your foot out or you take your

face out from under the covers as a

means to cool yourself. You're actually

allowing cooling of the body through

what are called

AVAs, arteriovenous ammoses is the

technical name that are in the palms

the upper half of the face and the balms

of the feet. Now there are things that

one can take to enhance the transition

to sleep. Three compounds that could be

very beneficial for aiding the

transition to sleep and for which there

are wide safety margins although please

do check with your physician before

taking anything are specific forms of

magnesium something called apogenine and

theanine magnesium comes in many forms

magnesium thrienate that's t h r e o n a

trenate and magnesium

blycinate have transporters that allow

them to cross the bloodb brain barrier

more readily than other forms of

magnesium And there within the brain

they promote the release of a

neurotransmitter called GABA which is an

inhibitory neurotransmitter which shuts

off the forebrain to some extent. It

doesn't shut off completely but it

essentially shuts down thinking

rumination, planning and what we call

executive function. So for many people

taking 300 to 400 milligrams of

magnesium diglycinate or magnesium

3enate 30 to 60 minutes before sleep can

aid them in falling asleep. when coupled

with apagenine and theanine provide a

sort of synergy or a sleep cocktail that

seems to be very effective in aiding the

transition to sleep. So apagenine is the

substance that's found in chamomile and

50 milligs of apagenine taken 30 minutes

before sleep can act as a another way to

shut off the forebrain and reduce

rumination, reduce anxiety and allow

people to fall and stay asleep. And then

the third compound is theine. T H E A N

I N E. Theonine is a compound that can

also increase GABA but also increases

activation of something called chloride

channels. Chloride channels are another

way in which neurons lower their levels

of activity. So magnesium 3inator by

glycinate, epigenine and theanine in

combination can be very effective for

aiding the transition to sleep. Now what

if you wake up in the middle of the

night? This is a very common occurrence

and there are two general themes around

waking up in the middle of the night

that one can use tools to counteract.

The first theme is if you're somebody

who is tired in the evenings and you're

kind of pushing yourself to stay awake.

So, you're going to the party or you're

pushing yourself to study or work when

in fact you'd like to get into bed at

8:30 or 9 and then you're falling asleep

around 10:30, 11:00 and waking up at

2:30 or 3 in the morning and you can't

fall back asleep. Chances are that your

melatonin pulse was initiated early in

the night. So, that melatonin pulse

started probably around 8:30 or 9, but

you're staying up. You're battling that

melatonin. You may not like this advice

but one of the things that you can do to

offset that is to simply go to bed

earlier. The other thing is many people

wake up in the middle of the night

because of anxiety or because they have

to use the restroom. It's perfectly fine

to flip on the lights, but keep the

lights dim. But if you flip on those

lights, try and flip them off as soon as

possible and try and get back into bed.

So now we've essentially traveled around

the clock, so to speak, from the time

where one wakes up until the time they

get to sleep, maybe wake up, get back to

sleep, etc. I want to emphasize that

although people's schedules vary, most

people are doing more than one or two

workouts per day. And indeed, I'm doing

more than one or two workouts per day. I

really emphasize that morning 90minute

work block because I think most people

would agree that there's a portion of

each day in which we need to do the

hardest thing or the most important

thing or the thing that demands the most

of our cognitive self. I position that

early in the day and I position

everything around that in order to

ensure that it happens and that it

happens with the highest degree of

efficiency even though that morning

90minute work block is so vital. Of

course there's a second work block. So

combined that's just three hours of

focused work, which may not seem like a

lot, but if you were to dissect your day

and kind of look at the arc and

structure of your day, I'd be willing to

bet that if we added up the total period

of time in which you were in deep work

really focused, dedicated work, that it

would probably amount to about 3 or 4

hours. And of course, throughout the

day, there are other things happening

outside of those 90-minute work blocks.

I'm checking my text messages. I'm

checking my email. I'm responding to

various demands. I'm working and tending

to life. So, while I've carved some

boundaries or delineated some boundaries

around those work blocks, and I'm

certain that if you do too, you will

benefit from them. Of course, please

adapt and modify what I've described

today in ways that best serve you and

your schedule. What I've tried to do is

provide you scientific support, specific

protocols and regimens because people

are always asking me for more

specificity and detail and an example of

one way, just one way, in which these

various tools and protocols that are

grounded in science could be leveraged

in one's own life. And last but not

least, thank you for your interest in

science.

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