The Daily (Learning) Routine

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt in response to experience. This means that the Brain is constantly rewiring itself in response to the things we do, think, and feel. The more we do something, the more our brain changes in response to it. This is why it's so important to choose activities and thoughts that we want to encourage, because they will help shape the brain in a positive way.

Plasticity Is NOT the Goal

Plasticity is a state or capacity for our nervous system to change. The purpose of plasticity is to help us achieve specific goals. These goals could be anything from Learning a new skill to forgetting a bad memory. Plasticity is not the goal itself, but simply a means to an end.

No Obligation To Change

The idea that you can change your life for the better by leveraging neuro-plasticity is an incredible thing. However, it is not mandatory. There are people who are content with where they are at and do not want to change. That is perfectly okay. If they ever do decide that they want to use neuro-plasticity to improve their life, they can do so at any time.

Practical Plasticity Language

The nervous system has different systems available for plasticity (the ability to change). These include long-term potentiation, long-term depression, and spike-timing-dependent plasticity. However, the best way to think about plasticity is in terms of short-term, medium-term, and long-term plasticity.

Short-term plasticity is any kind of change that you want to achieve in the moment or in the day, but that you don't necessarily want to hold on to forever.

Medium-term plasticity is when you want to make changes that you don't expect to last too long. For example, if you go on vacation to a new place, you might want to learn the different routes and town names, but you don't have any intention of remembering it once you leave.

Long-term plasticity is when you want to make changes that you do want to last. This is what a child does when they learn how to walk – they don't have to think about it after they've learned.

Pillars of Neuroplasticity

The autonomic arousal system is a system of neurons in the brain and body that wake us up and make us alert. This system is responsible for triggering neuroplasticity, which is the process by which the brain changes and adapts in response to experience. Without this system, we would not be able to learn and improve our brain function.

My Daily Routine: Chronotype Management

Huberman is not a morning person, and he tend to go to bed late and wake up groggy. The reason for this is because his natural circadian rhythm is shorter than 24 hours, so he is  not matching his hard-wired needs for sleep. To fix this, he need to get sunlight in their eyes in the first 30 minutes of the day, which will help him delay his sleep cycle and make him feel more awake.

Plasticity of the Wake-Sleep Circuit: Morning Light

The connections between the melanopsin cells and the circadian clock are plastic and can be changed throughout the lifespan. This means that the body can adapt and change its response to light exposure depending on the person's age and needs.

Delay Caffeine!

Huberman discusses how he uses light and caffeine to help him wake up and feel more alert in the morning. He says that exposing yourself to light in the morning can help to 'prime' or 'potentiate' the connection between the melanopsin cells in your eyes and the circadian clock, making it easier to wake up naturally. He also recommends delaying your intake of caffeine for the first two hours after waking, to avoid a 'mid-morning crash' caused by the competing effects of caffeine and adenosine.

Light, Black Coffee, Hydrate

I wake up early and use a bright light to help me stay alert. I also delay my caffeine intake. I drink black coffee or mate, which is a high-caffeine drink. I do this because I want the circuits between my eye and my circadian clock and my adrenals to be functioning in a particular way. This allows the caffeine to add more alertness.

High Alertness, Linear Tasks/Learning

Different people function at different times of day, and those times of day can be used to best effect depending on the task at hand. People who are most alert and focused first thing in the morning should use that time for tasks that require strategy and implementation, as the brain is better able to do those things when it is well rested. However, tasks that require creativity are best done later in the day, when the brain is in a more calm or drowsy state.

Background Music/Noise: Yay or Nay?

Having background noise can sometimes help with focus, and other times be distracting. What actually governs that is the source of the lack of focus. If the lack of focus is because our autonomic arousal or our alertness is very, very high, then eliminating background noise and trying to get silence will be best for learning and for implementation of things we already know how to do.

“GO” versus “NO-GO”: The Basal Ganglia & Dopamine

If you are keyed up, or very excited, a particular circuit in your brain, called the go-no go circuit, is more easily triggered. This circuit is responsible for action, and the molecule dopamine helps to trigger this action. However, if you are too keyed up, the no-go pathway in the basal ganglia is more easily activated, which suppresses action.

Leveraging GO, NO-GO

In order to be productive, you need to be in the right state of mind and body. This means being alert and focused. For some people, this means having complete silence. For others, it means listening to music in the background.

Non-Specific Action

When you are very alert, you are more likely to be distracted and less likely to be able to focus. Therefore, it is important to create an environment for yourself that is conducive to learning and focus. This may include turning off your phone, disconnecting from the internet, and/or removing other distractions from your immediate vicinity.

Clear, Calm, Focused: The GO, NO-GO Sweet Spot

The description of the ideal state for learning is a state of "clear, calm, and focused" attention. In this state, we have the energy and focus to pursue our goals, but we also have the energy and focus to suppress irrelevant actions. This state is optimal for learning because it allows us to focus on the task at hand and ignore distractions.

When Very Alert, Work In Silence; When Tired, Include Background Noise

The brain is always scanning the environment for things, and when there are more things in the environment, the brain is more alert. However, some people find that having some background noise can help them focus better. This is because the auditory and visual systems are linked, and when there is more to pay attention to, the brain is more likely to be focused.

Temperaments Vary: And So Should This

Some people are naturally more calm and focused, and that these people are less likely to be affected by things like background noise.

The 3 Hour-Long Post Waking Block

Three hours after waking up are the most important hours of the day in terms of being alert and productive.

Early Morning Exercise and GO Networks

Exercising in the morning can help improve your focus and mental alertness for the rest of the day. This is because exercising early in the day can trigger the release of neurotransmitters like epinephrine, which can help to increase arousal and alertness. However, if you exercise too intensely, you may end up feeling fatigued later on in the day. Therefore, it is important to time your exercise and nutrition properly in order to avoid a post-exercise crash.

Fasting, Ketogenic Diets, & Food Volume

In general, people tend to feel more alert when they are fasting or in a low carbohydrate state. This is because carbohydrates are rich in tryptophan, which can make people feel sleepy. When people eat, it can shift their state towards feeling more calm.

Sodium/Electrolytes

If you drink black coffee or mate, you might dehydrate yourself because you excrete sodium when you drink those beverages. Salt is a good thing and that if you are low on blood sugar, it might actually be because you are low on sodium. If you drink water with salt, it can help you feel more stable in terms of your blood sugar.

Avoiding Hot Lunch, Food Pre-Occupation

So there are a few things to take away from this. First, it is important to eat a nutritious meal in the middle of the day in order to maintain focus and energy levels. Secondly, if you have exercised hard earlier in the day, you may need to ingest some additional carbohydrates in order to replenish your glycogen stores. Lastly, if you are fasting in order to increase alertness, be sure that you are not so hungry or preoccupied with food that you cannot focus properly.

Post Lunch Low/No Cognitive Load

Our brains get tired as the day goes on, and this can impact our ability to focus and do complex tasks. Doing more mundane tasks in the afternoon can be easier because they require less cognitive load. It is important to take breaks throughout the day to allow our brains to rest.

Hydration, NSDR, Nap

There are a few key things to learn from this. First, it is important to hydrate after eating and exercising. Second, it is important to take some time to rest in the afternoon. This will help you to function better later in the day and will also help you to sleep better at night. Finally, it is important to use both caffeine-free and caffeine-based learning bouts in order to maximize your learning potential.

Creativity Work

Creativity is a very interesting state of mind in which, we're taking existing elements, things that we already know, and rearranging them in ways that are novel.

Creativity Is A Two-Part Phenomenon

Creativity has two parts: discovery and implementation. The first part, discovery, is when you are exploring different configurations and being playful. This state is facilitated by being relaxed. The second part, implementation, is when you take the idea or design you've come up with and turn it into something concrete. This state is facilitated by being alert.

Psychedelics

Psychedelics are thought to increase lateral connectivity between different brain areas, allowing for more novel associations. However, it is not simply the case that psychedelics are the portal to creativity. Creativity also involves reconfiguring things, such that the new space-time rule that one comes up with, is interesting, stimulating and kind of in many cases, delightful to the observer.

Afternoon Light As Insurance

It is important to get light in the evening in order to help regulate one's sleep cycle. Getting light in the morning will help advance the sleep cycle, while getting light in the evening will help delay the sleep cycle. This will help the person sleep better at night and have more energy during the day.

Evening Nutrition

Huberman tend to eat more carbohydrates in the evening, because those foods help to promote sleepiness and calmness. He also mention that if someone has exercised earlier in the day (particularly if it was a strenuous activity), it is important to replenish glycogen levels in the body, and carbohydrates are the best way to do that.

Repacking Glycogen: Hormonal Factors

Many people who follow ketogenic diets and do not eat carbohydrates in the evening have trouble sleeping. This is because they have a lot of energy and they cannot calm down. Eating carbohydrates in the evening can help replenish glycogen and help people sleep better.

Pre-Sleep Anxiety: Normal and Easy To Solve

Circadian rhythm is the natural cycle of wakefulness and sleepiness that our bodies experience throughout the day. The circadian rhythm is controlled by a "circadian clock" in the brain, and this clock is responsible for signaling when we should feel alert and awake, and when we should feel sleepy and ready for bed. According to the data from Dr. Czeisler, the circadian clock signals a peak of alertness and wakefulness about an hour before bedtime. This means that many people may experience a sudden burst of energy and activity right before they are ready to go to sleep, which can lead to anxiety and stress if they are not aware of this natural phenomenon.

The Power of Objective Tools

In order to optimize  brain and learning activities, its important to understand the physiological mechanisms behind things like changes in alertness, in order to be able to optimize one's brain and body for better performance. They mention things like fasting, caffeine, and physical activity, and how each of these can impact our physiology in different ways.

Visualization

In short, visualization can help improve performance in a particular activity, but only if the person visualization is able to remain focused and linear in their thoughts. For many people, this is difficult to do, and thus they do not get much benefit from visualization. Additionally, visualization is not a guaranteed method for improving performance, and there are other methods that may be more effective.

Mini-Synthesis

Huberman wakes up sometime between 5:30 and 7:00 AM, depending on how active he was  the night before. He has a period of focused work in the morning, followed by a period of sleepiness in the afternoon. He tries to stay awake during the late night hours, as this is when he is the most alert. And then he falls asleep again and wake up in the morning.

Resetting Your Clock

It is normal to wake up in the middle of the night, and it likely means that the person should go to bed earlier. This is because of the asymmetry in the autonomic nervous system, which makes it easier to stay up later than it is to wake up earlier. They say that they personally don't want to go to bed early, but that it is a consequence of running out of melatonin.

Don’t Trust the Mind Now

Huberman has a couple of rules for when they wake up in the middle of the night anxious or with their mind looping. One is to not trust anything they think about. They also find it helpful to do a non sleep deep rest protocol, like a hypnosis app, to help them fall back asleep.

Two, (Maybe 3) Optimization Bouts Per Day

If you wake up in the middle of the night and you're anxious, one thing you can do is try a hypnosis app, or some other type of deep rest protocol, to help you fall back asleep. This can be helpful because it can help to turn off any looping thoughts you may be having.

Organizational Logic

Huberman describes how he optimizes his learning and mental performance by using various biological mechanisms, such as the basal ganglia and the circadian autonomic system. He also mentions how states of relaxation or sleepiness can support the creative process. There are many factors to consider when optimizing learning and brain change, and that what works for him may not work for everyone.

Wim Hof Breathing, Binaural Beats, Ice Baths, Etc.

There are various methods that can be used to improve alertness or calmness, depending on what is needed. Some of these methods may carry certain risks as everyone is different, so it is important to read up on the risks and decide what is best for oneself. Its important to matcb  the level of alertness or calmness to the task at hand, in order to optimize learning and performance.

Variation Among People, and Dogs

Some people are just more go and no-go. And some people, are just calmer and have a harder time getting into action in an activity. It's just the way that we're wired. Some of us have autonomic nervous systems that are more geared towards parasympathetic, calm states.