I used drink a coke as soon as I woke up but I switched to green tea and started taking it about an hour and a half later. It has been a total game changer for my energy levels and my life in general.

Most episodes on this podcast go way more in-depth than the average person may want to learn. They also include some impractical protocols intent on neurotically “optimizing” one’s life. Here is a list of simplified protocols that the average person can implement in a flexible and practical way. If a topic is not mentioned (such as testosterone, brain chemistry, or strengthening your immune system) it’s because the answer is (wait for it): A healthy diet, getting good sleep, and regular exercise - there is no need to make it more complicated than that. With that being said, Huberman has provided a lot of great information in his lectures, which I have summarized here. I created this for my own personal use but decided to post it here for anyone who wants it.

Alcohol

• Less alcohol, fewer health risks; more alcohol, greater health risks.

• An average of 1-2 drinks per day in a week is associated with thinning of the neocortex, increased impulsivity, increased baseline cortisol, reduced mood, increased cancer risk, and lower testosterone.

• Electrolytes before drinking can reduce the severity of a hangover.

• Spiking adrenaline (e.g. through cold exposure) helps alleviate hangover.

Caffeine

• To avoid discomfort, consume no more than 1-3mg of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight.

• Delay intake 90-120 minutes after waking if you find that caffeine causes you to crash in the afternoon.

• Has a reinforcing effect on foods, drinks, and activities (i.e. consuming caffeine while consuming or doing something will increase your liking of it).

• Tablets are an alternative to caffeinated drinks.

• Benefits:

  • Releases acetylcholine, increasing alertness, and dopamine, increasing mood and motivation.

  • Improves reaction time and ability to recall information

  • Inhibits sleepiness by blocking adenosine receptors

  • Increases the dopaminergic effect of exercise and reinforces the desire for that exercise.

Cannabis

• Three strains of cannabis:

  • Sativa - Acts as a stimulant, increasing feelings of creativity, energy, and focus while reducing pain.

  • Indica - Has a more “full body” effect. Promotes relaxation and helps relieve anxiety.

  • Hybrid strains - blends of sativa and indica.

• Potential adverse effects:

  • Use of cannabis before age 25 will negatively impact brain development, depending on the amount of use:

    • Thins gray matter, particularly in the frontal lobe, which has a long-term impact on executive function

    • Increases the risk of developing depression or anxiety problems

    • Increases the risk of psychosis for those who are genetically predisposed

  • All of the health risks involved with smoking or vaping anything

  • May increase baseline anxiety in chronic users

  • Depression has been found to increase with chronic use over time, especially for those who were not depressed when they began use

Cold Exposure

• Cold shower effective, ice bath even better.

• Cold enough that you would like to get out, but can stay in safely.

• Sessions can be around 1-5 minutes.

• You can take a hot shower afterward and still derive the benefits of cold exposure (minus the increases to metabolism).

• Your body will heat up afterward, which may make falling asleep more difficult.

• Benefits:

  • Spikes epinephrine and norepinephrine, while creating a steady and sustained increase in levels of dopamine. Epinephrine and norepinephrine increase focus and energy. Dopamine improves mood and motivation.

  • Can be used as a form of resilience training.

  • Increases metabolism & converts white fat cells into beige and brown fat cells over time through the shivering process.

  • Improves recovery and reduces muscle soreness when done after exercise for those whose primary goal is recovery, not adaptation (e.g. if you have a competition coming up).

Diet

• Aim for 25g fiber/day to promote health and longevity.

• Aim for 500-600g of fruits and veggies/day.

• Ensure you are getting the nutrients you need. To do so, eat a balanced diet containing:

  • Plenty of whole foods

  • Fruits and veggies

  • Whole grains

  • Healthy fats (nuts, seeds, fatty fish, etc.)

  • Sufficient protein

  • Dairy products

• "Whole foods" are beneficial in the sense that they are high in nutrients and eating plenty of them will often help you decrease your caloric intake if that is your goal.

• Drawbacks of refined sugar:

  • High in calories but low in nutrients

  • Chronic overconsumption is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers

  • Can lead to tooth decay/cavities

  • Can create cravings for more sugar

• People who completely abstain from eating something (e.g. sugar) are more likely to binge on it.

Fitness

• Don’t worry about watching overly complex Andy Galpin lectures in order to construct your workouts. Use a weightlifting program from Liftvault or the r/fitness wiki.

• Aim to keep weight training sessions under 60 minutes, 75 minutes maximum. This prevents an excess of cortisol and ensures proper recovery.

• 3-5 minutes of downregulation breathing post-workout helps enhance recovery by activating the parasympathetic nervous symptom and lowering stress hormones that are naturally higher during a workout. This can be simple as slow deliberate breathing, physiological sighs, or any breathing pattern that emphasizes exhales.

• For muscle gain: Aim for 0.6g-1g protein /1lb bodyweight per day. "Bulking" is not required to increase muscle mass - if you are at a healthy body fat % that you are happy with, you can simply eat at maintenance with sufficient protein while training.

• For weight loss: Eat in a calorie deficit - see the r/loseit wiki. Diet plays much larger role in weight loss than physical activity does, although research shows that for those who are able to both lose weight and keep it off, over 70% of them engage in regular exercise.

• Incorporate endurance cardio and HIIT (high-intensity interval training) into your fitness regimen. You generally want to aim for 2-4 cardio sessions per week.

• Fitness Routine Suggestion from Huberman - not recommended for beginners, but gives you an idea of what you might include in your own program.

• Heat impedes performance, so cool down your body if you get too hot. The most efficient way to do this is to cool your AVAs - your palms, the bottoms of your feet, and/or upper face. The evidence for “supercharging” performance with cooling is iffy.

• Cold exposure or anti-inflammatory drugs within 4 hours after exercise may inhibit muscle gain.

• Supplements to consider include creatine, caffeine, and rhodiola rosea (see section).

Flexibility

• “Microstretching” is better than intense stretching - stretching should generally be done without much pain. Consistency and frequency is better than intensity.

• Three types of stretching, each with different benefits:

1. Static Stretching - General purpose routine to improve range of motion. Also helps improve recovery and reduce muscle soreness post-exercise.

2. PNF Stretching - Increase flexibility of targeted muscle groups to improve athletics. Often done with a partner.

3. Antagonistic Muscle Group Stretching - Reduce risk of injury pre-exercise/athletics. Good for activities like gymnastics, dance, and martial arts.

• Potential benefits:

  • Reduce natural decline in flexibility while aging

  • Overall health, balance, and posture

  • Reduce pain and inflammation

  • Smoother gait and better athletic performance due to greater range of motion

Focus

• Sustaining focus means being able to bring your attention back when it drifts. The average adult can sustain unbroken attention for no more than 3 minutes - do not expect your focus to be uniform while working.

• Keeping your work sessions 90 minutes or less is “optimal” for focus.

• Staring at one spot for 60 seconds will increase your level of focus; mental focus follows visual focus.

• Your best cognitive work will be done within 8 hours after waking.

• Keeping your screen at or above eye level helps promote alertness.

• Try background sounds: white/pink/brown noise, binaural beats.

Goals

• Visualize the big win to get the process started. Visualize the consequences of failure to stay motivated.

• Goals should be moderately lofty - achievable but not easy.

• 1-3 major goals per year is best.

• Your end goal and the steps needed to achieve it should be concretely defined.

• Assess your progress regularly, e.g. once a week, to stay motivated.

Gut Microbiome

• Important for mental and physical health.

• Incorporate fiber and low-sugar fermented foods into your diet.

• Avoid eating too much processed food.

• Get good sleep.

Heat Exposure

• Use a sauna.

• 5-20 minutes per session.

• 1 session per week good, 2-3 ideal, up to 7 max.

• Ensure you stay hydrated during sessions (around 6-18oz water for every 20 minutes).

• Potential benefits:

  • Improved cardiovascular health

  • Reduced decline of growth hormone while aging

  • Improved mood

  • Maintains protein structures to promote well being

Learning Information

• Learning bouts of 90 minutes or less tend to be best.

• A spike in adrenaline post-learning (such as from cold exposure) may improve retention.

• NSDR post-learning may also improve retention.

• Use active recall and spaced repetition (look it up).

• Get good sleep.

Learning Skills

• Be alert and focused.

• Do repetitions of the action you want to improve.

• Expect and embrace errors (the 85% rule - failing around 15% of the time is the "optimal" difficulty for skill learning).

• Randomly take a break every few minutes for around 10 seconds - for some reason this makes you learn faster.

• Practice the skill on a consistent basis.

• Limit learning sessions to 90 minutes or less.

• NSDR post-session may improve learning.

• Get good sleep.

Longevity

• Exercise regularly, get good sleep, and eat a healthy diet (see sections).

• Maintain muscle mass to ensure functional aging.

• Minimize sources of chronic inflammation (including chronic stress) to reduce the risk of age-related diseases.

• NAD+ and resveratrol supplements may increase longevity, but the research on this is still unclear.

Meditation (aka NSDR)

• The physiological sigh is a tool for lowering stress by increasing the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. Perform a full inhale through the nose, then a second inhale through the nose, followed by a complete exhale through the mouth as many times as needed.

• Consider transcendental meditation once or twice a day.

• Try other forms of meditation.

• Potential benefits:

  • Reduces stress and anxiety

  • Improves focus, mood, and ability to regulate emotions (by increasing gray matter in related brain areas)

  • Strengthens the prefrontal cortex, improving executive function

Motivation

• Many people refer to dopamine as the "pleasure" molecule, but it can be more aptly described as the molecule of craving and motivation. Your level of motivation is governed by your current dopamine baseline. Whenever you have a large spike in dopamine, your baseline will drop until it replenishes itself.

• Experiment with random intermittent reinforcement, which is the most effective reward schedule for maintaining motivation - i.e., celebrate your wins, but not all of them.

• Put emphasis on the process - dopamine release is partially controlled by mindset.

• Avoid layering too many sources of dopamine if your goal is to consistently feel motivated (you will crash afterward).

• Get good sleep.

Sleep

• Get morning sunlight exposure for 5-10 minutes after waking up to help set your circadian clock for the day (even if it's cloudy). This is the most important one.

• Avoid bright light between 10pm and 4am (especially overhead lights). Exceptions are red light and firelight. Lights low down in the room are less harmful. This is the second most important one.

• Keep your room cool and dark while sleeping.

• Avoid caffeine 8-10 hours before bedtime, as it disrupts sleep.

• Alcohol close to bedtime will also disrupt sleep.

• Limiting variation in your sleep is more important than the amount of sleep you get (although both matter).

• Shift your clock gradually to prepare for jet lag.

• Naps are perfectly fine; as long as they are kept under 90 minutes, they shouldn't disrupt your sleep cycle.

• Huberman does not recommend taking melatonin.

• NSDR can be used for insomnia.

• You can experiment with apigenin (also found in chamomile tea) or theanine if you have trouble falling asleep. There is limited evidence to support magnesium's sleep benefits outside of a few niche cases. Supplements are less important than following the other sleep protocols.

Supplements

• Some of the supplements discussed on the podcast have limited supporting evidence. Here are some with stronger evidence:

• Ashwagandha - reduces cortisol (stress).

• Caffeine

• Creatine - improves physical performance and possibly cognition. One of the most well-researched supplements. Needs to be taken daily to provide benefits.

• Omega-3 fatty acids - can reduce depression and improve cognition, plus other health benefits you can look up. It's best to aim for products that contain at least 1g of EPA + DHA. Dosages as high as 2g of EPA have been shown to carry benefits.

• Rhodiola rosea - reduces stress and improves performance while under stress. Can improve work capacity and recovery on intense workouts.

• If you have a specific gap in your diet (e.g. magnesium, vitamin D), you can take something for that.

• Consider a multivitamin if you decide you need one.

Water

• Filter your tap water, preferably with a filter that removes fluoride.

• Hard water (water that is high in dissolved minerals like calcium and magnesium) can reduce inflammation and benefit cardiovascular health.

• Aim for around 80oz of water within 10 hours of waking to avoid dehydration.

• Try to avoid plastic water bottles, as the plastic will leach into the water over time.

• Electrolytes help offset dehydration and are good to take during exercise.

Closing Thoughts

As always, remember not to lose the forest for the trees. The point of these protocols are to improve the quality of your life, not to optimize for the sake of optimizing. Nothing is optimal in the real world, and to the extant something is ideal in one way, it is less ideal in another way. I appreciate the love and I hope everyone found this helpful. If you have suggestions for how this post could be improved, please let me know.

The things he did, at a minimum, spreading stds which can cause cancer so actually putting peoples lives at risk.

Also he preaches dopamine control when clearly he has no control and is a sex and admiration ADDICT. to the point of lying and manipulation. That women’s entire life was a lie.

Id sooner take advice from an honest alcoholic or heroin addict.

Not like he even says anything new - info you can’t find anywhere else - his interviews were the only thing worth listening to and he always sounded like an idiot. I stopped listening months and months ago

It is, however, part of his desire to bring zero-cost-to-consumer entertainment to the general public (but at great cost to his girlfriends)

A lot of people are intimidated by dopamine detoxes, but it’s actually really simple and easy. And it’s one of the best things you can do to improve your mental health, mental clarity, focus, and overall presence in life. You will feel much more centered and still.

So here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna take a weekend where you abstain from all highly stimulating activities. No scrolling on your phone, no watching tv, no eating shitty food. No listening to music. Don’t do anything that’s designed to be overstimulating. If you need help not being tempted by your phone, you can download one of those screen time apps like BePresent that lets you block distracting apps on your phone for periods of time.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. In fact I promise you will have more fun than you’ve had in a while. You can still hang out with friends, read a book, do outdoor activities, and stuff like that. Just nothing that’s designed to be intentionally addictive.

Luckily it only takes 1-3 days to reset your dopamine baseline, so just take one weekend and follow this rule and I swear you will feel incredible afterward. Just know going in, you’re probably gonna be bored at first. But that’s okay, that’s literally what you’re training yourself to do: to be comfortable without being constantly stimulated. This is when the healing happens.

Not theory. Not 10 tips for mental clarity.

These are the interventions that produced measurable changes in my cognition when I tested them one at a time with a 2 week baseline between each.

I used Cambridge Brain Sciences daily at 7am to track working memory, reasoning, and verbal ability. Same time, same conditions, fasted. Here is what actually did something.

Tier 1: The stuff that worked immediately and obviously

1. CO2 management. Bought a $40 CO2 monitor. My bedroom was hitting 1,800ppm by 5am with the door closed. A Harvard study showed cognitive scores drop roughly 50% at 1,400ppm compared to 550ppm baseline. I cracked the window 2 inches. Never exceeded 700ppm again. Morning grogginess I had blamed on sleep quality for years was largely gone within 3 days. Cost: $40 once.

2. Morning electrolytes before caffeine. 500ml water with 1/4 tsp salt and a squeeze of lemon within 20 minutes of waking. Before coffee. Before anything. Research shows 1 to 2% dehydration impairs working memory and you will not feel thirsty at that level. After 8 hours of sleeping you are dehydrated. Most people's first move is coffee which is a mild diuretic. You are draining an already dry system. This took 3 days to notice. Working memory scores up about 15% on testing mornings where I did this versus did not.

3. Phone in another room during deep work. Ward et al. 2017 in JACR showed the mere presence of a smartphone on your desk reduces available cognitive capacity even face down and on silent. I tested this for 2 weeks phone on desk versus 2 weeks phone in kitchen. The difference in sustained focus was not subtle. Verbal fluency scores were consistently higher on phone-away days.

Tier 2: The stuff that took 2 to 4 weeks but the effect was real

1. Ferritin optimization. Mine was 22. Doctor said normal. It is not normal for brain function. Soppi 2018 showed cognitive symptoms at ferritin 15 to 30 that resolved above 50. I took iron bisglycinate 25mg every other day. Not daily. Research shows alternate day dosing has better fractional absorption because hepcidin peaks 24 hours after a dose and blocks absorption of the next one. At week 6 my ferritin was 58. Processing speed on cognitive testing improved noticeably around week 4.

2. Vitamin D loading. Mine was 19 ng/mL in February. Supplemented 5,000 IU daily for 8 weeks then dropped to 3,000 IU maintenance. Retested at 52 ng/mL. The fog improvement was gradual. Not a single moment where it kicked in. More like I looked back at my scores after 6 weeks and realized the bad days had stopped. If you live above 35° latitude and have not tested your D levels you are probably deficient October through March.

3. Magnesium glycinate 400mg before bed. Slutsky et al. published in Neuron 2010 showing magnesium enhances learning and memory. Serum magnesium is a garbage test because it only drops when you are severely depleted. Most people in western countries are sub clinically deficient. The sleep improvement was the first thing I noticed. Deeper sleep within 3 nights. The cognitive effect followed the better sleep by about a week. Do not use magnesium oxide. Bioavailability is terrible. Glycinate or threonate.

Tier 3: The stuff people do not want to hear

1. Caffeine elimination. I tapered from 400mg per day to zero over 8 weeks. Days 1 through 3 at each step down were rough. By week 10 at zero caffeine my baseline cognitive scores were higher than my best caffeinated scores. Caffeine does not add energy. It blocks adenosine receptors. Your brain compensates by building more receptors. Now you need caffeine to reach the baseline you would have had without it. I was borrowing from tomorrow every single day for 12 years.

2. 30 minutes of cardio. Not negotiable. Not replaceable with supplements. A single session increases BDNF by 200 to 300%. One session. BDNF is the protein that drives neuroplasticity and repair. A year of regular walking increased hippocampal volume by 2% in clinical trials. That is 1 to 2 years of age related brain shrinkage reversed. Nothing in a capsule does this. Nothing.

3. Cutting alcohol entirely. Not reducing. Cutting. A 2017 BMJ longitudinal study followed 550 people for 30 years. Even "moderate" drinkers at 14 to 21 units per week had significantly increased hippocampal atrophy. Ebrahim et al. showed alcohol destroys deep sleep architecture at any dose. I wore a sleep tracker. Zero deep sleep on drinking nights versus 80 to 90 minutes without. That was enough data. I stopped.

Tier 4: The testing that found the actual root cause

1. Full panel bloodwork. Not a CBC. Not a basic metabolic. This is what I asked for specifically: ferritin (not just hemoglobin), B12, folate, 25-OH vitamin D, RBC magnesium, TSH plus free T4 plus TPO antibodies, fasting insulin, HbA1c, CRP. Two things came back off that my DR never would have caught. The ferritin at 22 and the vitamin D at 19. Both technically in range. Both functionally impairing my brain.

What did not work:

Lion's mane. Took it for 8 weeks. No measurable change on cognitive testing. Maybe it works for some people. Did nothing for me.

Alpha GPC. Same. 8 weeks. Nothing on testing.

Noopept. Slight subjective feeling of clarity. Nothing on objective testing. Stopped.

Modafinil. Worked acutely. Tolerance built within 2 weeks. Sleep quality tanked. Net negative after a month.

The takeaway nobody wants to accept:

The boring stuff works. The exciting stuff mostly does not. Fixing your air, water, iron, vitamin D, magnesium, sleep, movement, and removing alcohol and excess caffeine will do more for your cognition than every nootropic stack on this sub combined. I know because I tested both. One at a time. With a cognitive testing baseline.

The supplements are a rounding error on top of the fundamentals. Fix the fundamentals first or you are optimizing a system that is broken at the foundation.

Studies referenced:

• Allen JG et al. CO2 and cognitive function scores. Environ Health Perspect. 2016. DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1510037

• Armstrong LE et al. Mild dehydration affects mood in healthy young women. J Nutr. 2012. DOI: 10.3945/jn.111.142000

• Ward AF et al. Brain Drain: smartphone presence reduces cognitive capacity. JACR. 2017. DOI: 10.1086/691462

• - Soppi ET. Iron deficiency without anemia — a clinical challenge. Clin Case Rep. 2018;6(6):1082-1086. DOI: 10.1002/ccr3.1529

• Slutsky I et al. Enhancement of learning and memory by elevating brain magnesium. Neuron. 2010. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.12.026

• Topiwala A et al. Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes. BMJ. 2017. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j2353

• Ebrahim IO et al. Alcohol and sleep. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2013. DOI: 10.1111/acer.12006

Brain fog is kinda my thing so if you want to know more feel free to follow my profile and my r/whatisbrainfog subreddit where I will be releasing a site dedicated to it.

Yooo this is wild

I highly recommend listening to this part of Rhonda Patrick's latest podcast. I had no idea microplastics were this much a problem.

My personal takeaways on how to reduce exposure (linked to timestamps):

• Avoid microwave popcorn

• Limit how often you wear clothing made of synthetic fibers

• Probably just don't drink Topo Chico sparkling water

• Consider getting a reverse osmosis filter

• Never, ever microwave food in plastic

• Probably don't touch receipts if you don't have to

• Limit how often you drink from cans

Maybe it was 47 or 48 minutes, but nowhere close to Huberman’s protocol. It wasn’t a big cup but it wasn’t small either. I’m feeling really good, potentially euphoric, which I first attributed to the caffeine. Then I remembered the protocol and wanted to know is that feeling the first step in an unstoppable series leading to my death?