How to Focus to Change Your Brain

something really captivating about the way he speaks. no wastage of words. spoken at a nice cadence. no intellectual pretense. 10/10

I can’t believe this is free FOR US This was edited because of the 61 geniuses who kept telling me it wasn’t free

Thanks for the great podcast! 1. Our brain is designed to be changed, so neuroplasticity is natural phenomenon. The brain of a new born child is giant web where almost every neurons is connected to each other (it's kind of like every city is connected with the roads, but there is no high way). Based on our experience, we reinforce some of the connections, but we mainly remove connections. After age of 25, having neuroplasticity becomes not as easy as when you were younger. 2. If you were born specific disabilities, the neurons for that ability can be taken over by other parts of the brain region. For example, some blind people use their visual cortex for braille reading, meaning their sensory for fingers is much better than other people. 3. After age of 25, the first step to neuroplasticity is recognizing that you want to change. 4. Unless you're a child, your brain doesn't change just having some experience 5. Inside your brain, each neural connection compete each other to take more space. This means in order to make new connections in your brain, you also have to give up. Only experience you immersive focused on triggers neuroplasticity if you're an adult. 6. In order to trigger neuroplasticity, you need three neuromodulator: epinephrine (same chemical as adrenaline but produced in brain instead of kidney), and acetylcholine from two different sources. Epinephrine increases the awareness and acetylcholine is spotlight that you amplify the information you are focusing on. 7. To increase acetylcholine, you can take nicotine (which I am not planning to), or you can focus on something (which may sound circular). The easiest way to focus on something is having visual focus on things you want to focus. Mental focus follows visual focus. Epinephrine can be increased by consuming caffeine, or other activities that can increase your awareness (cold shower). When your eyes are relaxed, you don't really have visual focus but can observe big pictures of different objects. If you are visually focusing on something, your eyes move inward a little bit and good amount of norepinephrine and acetylcholine are produced. The more visual focused you are, the higher mental focus you will have. When you are reading books but feel like you are not digesting anything, it is most likely that your eyes are moving around and collecting too much information. 8. Best way to practice this is staring at object with same distance for things you will be working on for 60 to 120 seconds. If I am trying to focus on coding, I can look at empty screen for 60 to 120 seconds before I work. If I am reading a book, I can stare at book cover for 60 seconds before I start reading. 9. Blinking reset our perception so less blinking can increase the focus. You can often see people closing their eyes when they are listening, and that's because they are focusing on auditory information instead of visual information. It is important to focus on things you want to learn or working on, but staring at one object with minimal blinking can be good practice. 10. After learning, being just mindless and and not focused on anything, or NSDR and sleep can help neuroplasticity.

For my own reference- 5:07 Neuroplasticity = the brain's & nervous system's ability to change itself. 30:35 High foucs (High states of alertness) is required for neuroplasticity(learning). 36:24 The experiences that you pay super close attention to are the ones who open up plasticity. And it open up plasticity ONLY TO THAT SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE (not other). 37:48 Why? - 2 neuro-chemicals 36:42 Adrenaline (same chemical for stress(sympathetic nervous system)) 39:21 High alertness is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for neuroplasticity. 23:34 Adrenaline(made from dopamine) cues the brain & nervous system that the upcoming actions/experiences are important. (This is why attraction(sympathetic n.s.) followed by making people open up & feel safe (para-sympathetic n.s.) gets them emotionally attached to you.) 40:18 Acetylcholine 40:45 Acetylcholine acts as a spotlight (on a person/thing etc). Sends axons to filter all other sensory input & produces a cone of attention towards. Amplifies signals from the focus of attention & disregards all other sensory input as noise. 41:58 3rd thing required for plasticity - Acetylcholine released from Nucleus Basalis of Mynert. All 3 combined = (Adrenaline + Acetylcholine released from Brain-stem + Acetylcholine released from Nucleus Basalis of Mynert ). Combination of these 3 produces plasticity. 42:18 Adrenaline + Acetylcholine = sufficient condition. Rapid, massive learning in just one shot. 51:38 The essence of neuroplasticity is to create a window of attention/focus which is distinct from the rest of your day. 54:53 Nicotine (increases acetylcholine) & Caffeine (caffeine increase adrenaline directly) 55:21 Adderal (ADHD medication) increases allertness not focus. Increases adrenaline and wakes up the brain. (It does not affect Acetylcholine) 58:32 Visual focus is followed by mental focus. Focus is anchored to the visual system. Releases both adrenaline & acetylcholine **************************** 1:02:58 We blink more when we get tired. Blinks actually reset the perception of time & space. Blinking less while staring to improve focus. 1:07:11 You will feel some agitation cause of the adrenaline in you system 1:07:25 Practise your ability to hold eye contact for long periods of time without blinking. 1:08:19 It's very easy to anchor your attention on a phone cause - small size makes it easy to limit visual attention, anything that has motion, out attention system will naturally gravitate towards it. 1:08:34 anything that has motion(variance/change), out attention system will naturally gravitate towards it. (This is why body language works so well). (Reminded of Andrew Tate's body lang rant & that charismatic sleep scientist on impact theory with great voice variance and body language.) 1:10:56 Adrenaline & Acetylcholine are finite in the brain. So use them selectively. Use it only on productive things (leverages). Devote you best periods of focus in a day to a good predetermined task. 1:12:03 90 mins. 1:12:59 Being completely immersed in an activity where you feel the agitation that your attention is drifting but you continually bring it back. You can re-anchor the attention drifts with the help of your eyes 1:13:12 You can re-anchor the attention drifts with the help of your eyes. This way you can greatly improve you focus and hence learning. 1:13:37 Actual neuroplasticity doesn't occur during wakefulness(allertness). It occurs during sleep (periods of calm- parasympathetic nervous system.) 1:14:52 NSDR, yoga-nidra & hypnosis can bypass the need for sleep (only partially) and accelerate neuroplasticity. Forward ambulation (walk, run, cycle) & Optic flow also does the trick. 1:16:23 You can train your brain to do more of these 90 mins sprints(periods of intense focus) followed by an NSDR protocol. 1:19:03 As an adult, if you want to learn, you have to focus intensly. 1:22:07 I dont' understand this contradictory statement ***************************** 53:31 1:02:05 Reason = 1:05:22 Convergent meditation followed by a divergent meditation is the same process as above. Makes you brain more creative. Tunnel Vision (Small monitors) used by gamers

All audiobooks should be read by Huberman.

Andrew, I don't know if you will see this, but I want you to know that your work literally saved my life. I feel like I was reborn. Knowledge of what's going on in my brain helped me tremendously in lighting up the dark place I was in for years. Thank you so much.

Dr Huberman, I just wanted you to know, this is currently the most useful content to me personally in all of YouTube and indeed, online. Your lecture content has information I could immediately put to use even while as I watch your lecture to confirm to myself that it is true, eg. to increase focus, focus your eyes. In the dopamine-trigger-happy medium of the internet, it is rare for me to watch a Netflix movie for 1 hour, never mind a 1.5 hour lecture on neurology. But I listened to every word, amazing even myself. I shall be following your lectures diligently henceforth. Thank you for the work that you do in bringing this knowledge to us at no charge.

I didn't notice his snoring at all, but one second after you mentioned it I began to hear it!

My brain is definitely hard-wired to like this podcast.

As many people already mentioned it, I also want to point out that just listening the podcast has an huge impact on my understanding of my own behavior, be able to explain things I do and why I do them. I’m really thankful to that what you do. Please never stop it.

Imagine listening to a podcast for 1:30 hours and in just that time you learn two or three concepts that can change your life considerably. Thank you Huberman!

This content is the manual for humans that we all need. Thank you so much Mr. Huberman. Soaking up every episode then I’ll do it again.

Please never ever stop this podcast! There is a certain group of followers who insist and crave for your apparance

The content is brilliant. But also the delivery. This man is full of positive, calm energy aimed at improving the world around and inside of him. I feel positively energized just from the vibe

Thank you so much, Dr. Andrew. You are a blessing in this era of superficial knowledge and limited attention spans.

Thank you for what you do professor. Its so important to understand how our brains function in order to maneuver ourselves in the direction we want to go in life. You're making this information available by delivering it so beautifully that even a layman with no scientific background can benefit from this. Sending love from India :)

Quote: " The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice. "--- Brian Herbert. Have a replenishing week Dr. Huberman. 🕯✝️🕊

What an incredible time to be alive and curious.

Dr. Huberman, I'd like to thank you for this enormous work you've been doing! You indeed changing our world for the better!

The discussion of visual focus practice ( 1:04:18) as a way to strengthen mental focus helps me make sense of the advice given in old yogic texts to use a visual object such as a rock or a candle flame as a meditation object. Thank you so much for all of the content you are offering to the public! It is obviously helping a lot of people, myself included 😊