Learn Faster Using Failures, Movement & Balance

0:00 - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast

0:02 where we discuss science and science-based tools

0:04 for everyday life.

0:09 My name is Andrew Huberman,

0:10 and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

0:13 at Stanford School of Medicine.

0:15 This podcast is separate

0:16 from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

0:18 It is, however, part of my desire and effort

0:20 to bring you zero cost to consumer information

0:22 about science and science-related tools.

0:25 In keeping with that theme,

0:26 I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

0:29 Our first sponsor is Headspace.

0:32 Headspace is a meditation app that makes meditation easy.

0:35 I've been meditating on and off now for about 30 years,

0:39 although I confess more off than on.

0:41 And that's because I think like, for a lot of people,

0:44 sticking to a meditation practice can be pretty challenging.

0:47 I started using Headspace a few years ago

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0:54 I meditate anywhere from five to seven times a week.

0:57 The app includes meditations

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1:10 On JetBlue flights,

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1:42 Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral

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1:47 I started using Athletic Greens in 2012,

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1:52 I started using Athletic Greens because

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3:13 The third sponsor of today's podcast is Madefor.

3:16 Madefor is behavioral science company

3:18 that makes learning positive habits and growth mindset easy.

3:21 I've been involved with Madefor since the beginning

3:24 as the lead of their scientific advisory.

3:27 Other members of the scientific advisory include,

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3:31 at the National Institutes of Mental Health,

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3:35 and elsewhere, all of whom are serious about science

3:38 and science-related tools

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3:42 The program is a 10 month-program,

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4:13 Today, we're going to talk about

4:14 how to change your nervous system for the better.

4:18 As you recall, your nervous system includes your brain

4:20 and your spinal cord,

4:22 but also all the connections that your brain and spinal cord

4:25 make with the organs of your body

4:27 and all the connections that the organs of your body

4:30 make with your brain and spinal cord.

4:32 This thing that we call the nervous system is responsible

4:35 for everything we know,

4:36 all our behavior, all our emotions,

4:39 everything we feel about ourselves and the outside world,

4:42 everything we think and believe.

4:43 It's really at the center of our entire experience of life

4:47 and who we are.

4:49 Fortunately, in humans, unlike in other species,

4:53 we can change our nervous system

4:55 by taking some very specific and deliberate actions.

4:59 And, today, we're really going to focus on the actions,

5:02 the motor commands and the aspects of movement and balance

5:07 that allow us to change our nervous system.

5:09 It turns out that movement and balance

5:12 actually provide windows or portals

5:14 into our ability to change our nervous system

5:17 the way we want,

5:18 even if those changes are not about

5:21 learning new movements or learning how to balance.

5:24 And soon you'll understand why.

5:26 So, today, we're going to talk a lot about

5:28 the basic science of neuroplasticity.

5:31 I promise to not use excessive nomenclature.

5:34 There'll be a little bit,

5:35 but I'll try and make it as clear as possible.

5:37 And we're also going to talk a lot about protocols and tools

5:41 that the scientific literature points to

5:44 and support for changing our nervous system,

5:47 again, not just for sake of learning new motor movements

5:50 or how to balance better,

5:51 but for how to feel differently

5:54 about particular experiences,

5:55 both past, present, and future,

5:57 and as well as how to learn faster.

6:00 We're not going to discuss hacks, a word I loath,

6:03 we're not going to discuss gimmicks,

6:05 we're going to discuss mechanism and scientific data

6:09 and the tools that those mechanisms

6:10 and scientific data point to

6:13 so that you can tailor your practices around learning

6:16 to your specific needs and goals.

6:19 So let's begin by just examining

6:21 the big picture question which is,

6:24 does the brain control behavior?

6:27 And my hope is that everyone is immediately thinking yes.

6:30 The brain and nervous system, we really should say,

6:33 'cause the brain is just one component

6:34 of the nervous system,

6:35 controls our behavior.

6:37 How does it do that?

6:39 Well, there are a couple different levels that it does that.

6:42 First of all, if we're talking about movement,

6:45 behavior generally means movement,

6:47 if we're talking about movement,

6:50 we have two categories of neurons

6:53 that are very important to think about

6:54 in the context of neuroplasticity.

6:56 First of all, we have what are called lower motor neurons.

7:01 These are motor neurons that live in our spinal cord.

7:05 For the aficionados out there,

7:06 for those of you that might be headed to medical school

7:08 or just want to learn more about the anatomy,

7:09 they live in the ventral horn of the spinal cord.

7:11 But that doesn't matter if you don't want to know that,

7:14 just know that you have these things called

7:15 lower motor neurons.

7:17 These are neurons that are in the spinal cord

7:20 but they extend a wire that we call an axon

7:22 out into the peripheral nervous system, into the body.

7:26 And those neurons connect with muscle.

7:29 They send electrical potentials out there

7:33 that allow our muscles to twitch into contract.

7:35 As a little point of fact, actually,

7:39 we don't have muscle memory.

7:41 There's no such thing as muscle memory.

7:42 Muscles are dumb.

7:44 They don't know anything,

7:45 they don't have a history, they don't have a memory,

7:48 they don't know anything.

7:49 It is the neurons that control those muscles

7:52 and their firing patterns in which all the information

7:56 for motor patterns are stored.

7:58 So your ability to walk is not muscle memory,

8:01 it's neural memory.

8:04 Now, the lower motor neurons,

8:06 while smarter than the muscle so to speak,

8:09 are not the most brilliant of the motor neurons.

8:12 They are generally involved in doing what they are told,

8:16 and they are told what to do from two sources.

8:20 We have circuits in our brainstem,

8:22 so this would be kind of around your neck deep in the brain,

8:25 that are called central pattern generators.

8:28 These are sometimes called CPGs.

8:29 Central pattern generators are what allow us to generate

8:32 repetitive patterns of movement.

8:34 So inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling

8:37 subconsciously is controlled by a central pattern generator.

8:41 That just means a collection of neurons.

8:43 If you really want to know,

8:43 they're called the pre-Botzinger neurons

8:45 discovered by Jack Feldman and colleagues at UCLA.

8:47 These neurons in the brainstem

8:49 send information down the phrenic nerve

8:52 and control the diaphragm.

8:54 And it goes inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

8:57 And you don't have to think about that.

8:58 You could think about it

8:59 and you could change the durations of inhales and exhales

9:02 and change that up,

9:03 but the motor neurons that control that

9:06 are just responding to what the brain is telling it to do.

9:11 The other central pattern generators include

9:13 things like walking.

9:15 The right limb-left limb, right limb-left limb pattern that

9:20 we normally associate with walking

9:21 was learned during childhood,

9:23 and these central pattern generators, sometimes called CPGs,

9:26 tell our lower motor neurons, "Fire.

9:30 Now you fire, now you fire."

9:31 So they are literally saying, "Right, left, right left."

9:34 They are the marching orders from the brainstem

9:37 to the lower motor neurons.

9:38 So these lower motor neurons do what they are told.

9:40 They are obedient little soldiers

9:42 and they do what they are told,

9:44 and their job is to make the muscles contract

9:47 at specific times.

9:49 Okay.

9:50 That's all simple.

9:52 But then there are the upper motor neurons.

9:54 The upper motor neurons actually reside in our motor cortex,

9:58 way up on top of the brain.

10:01 And they are involved in sending signals

10:04 for deliberate action.

10:06 So they send signals to the lower motor neurons

10:09 which are the effectors,

10:10 the ones that actually control the muscles,

10:12 but the upper motor neurons are the ones

10:15 that send very specific signals.

10:17 For instance, the signals that would allow you

10:19 to make a cup of coffee in the morning

10:20 or to deliberately engage in any kind of behavior.

10:24 Now, you can probably make a cup of coffee in the morning

10:26 without having to think about it too much.

10:27 It's almost reflexive for you now,

10:29 which means that a lot of the information

10:31 about how to perform that particular movement

10:34 has been passed off to circuitry that's now

10:38 more or less in the brainstem and below the motor cortex.

10:42 Now, why am I giving you all this detail?

10:44 Well, if you want to change motor patterns,

10:48 you have to know where in the circuitry changes are possible

10:51 and you ought to know where the changes

10:54 are most likely to occur.

10:56 You also need to know, how do you signal to the brain

11:00 and nervous system that a change is necessary?

11:03 So let's just pause there,

11:05 return to the initial question that we started with,

11:07 which is, does the brain control behavior?

11:10 And the answer is yes, and now you know how.

11:12 It's upper motor neurons, lower motor neurons,

11:15 you've got these things called central pattern generators

11:17 and some connection with the muscle.

11:18 So there you go, you just got,

11:20 basically, what was the equivalent of

11:23 the introduction to a college lecture

11:25 on motor control and the nervous system.

11:27 But the point today is all about plasticity.

11:30 How can that be leveraged in order to open up

11:33 this magical thing that we call plasticity

11:36 in order to access changes to our emotional experience,

11:40 or to our belief system,

11:43 or to our ability to remember

11:45 and use specific kinds of information

11:47 for say math, or language, et cetera?

11:50 Well, what I'm not going to tell you is that

11:53 you need to go running or you need to go biking,

11:56 or that simply going through motor patterns

11:59 is going to open up plasticity because

12:01 I hate to tell you this, but as beneficial as exercise is,

12:05 it does not open plasticity unless you do certain things.

12:10 And I will tell you exactly

12:11 what those certain things are today.

12:13 To be clear, I think exercise is wonderful and healthy,

12:16 can improve cardiovascular function,

12:17 maintain strength, bone density, all that good stuff.

12:20 But just working out or doing your exercise of various kinds

12:24 will not change your nervous system.

12:26 It will maintain it,

12:27 and it can certainly improve other health metrics,

12:30 but it is not going to open up the window for plasticity.

12:35 The question we need to ask

12:37 is can behavior change the brain?

12:40 We already agree that the brain can change behavior,

12:43 but can behavior change the brain?

12:46 And the answer is yes,

12:47 provided that behavior is different enough in specific ways

12:52 from the behaviors that you already know how to perform.

12:55 Let me repeat that.

12:56 Can behavior change the brain?

12:58 And the answer is yes,

13:00 provided that behavior is different enough

13:03 from the sorts of behaviors

13:04 that you already know how to perform.

13:06 And I should've added the word well.

13:09 Because you can't obviously perform a behavior

13:11 that you don't know how to perform

13:13 because you don't know how to do it yet.

13:14 But there's a key element to accessing neuroplasticity

13:19 that frankly I don't see out there

13:22 in the general discussion about neuroplasticity.

13:25 In the general discussion about neuroplasticity

13:27 and about learning, I hear all these gimmicks about using

13:30 different ways to remember lots of people's names

13:32 and arranging things into their first letters

13:34 and mnemonics and all this kind of stuff,

13:36 which, frankly, to me feels really gimmicky.

13:40 I think that if you look at super learners,

13:42 they tend to be people that have a process

13:45 of say extreme memory.

13:47 But people who have extreme memory, generally,

13:50 the literature shows us, are pretty poor at other things.

13:54 I don't think most of us are interested in walking around

13:57 knowing how to remember everything.

13:58 In fact, there are some interesting studies

14:00 looking at humans who over-remember,

14:04 and they suffer tremendously

14:06 because they remember all sorts of things,

14:07 like the number at the top of the receipt

14:09 at the bodega that they bought a Coca-Cola 10 years ago.

14:12 This is useless information for most people.

14:16 They don't do well in life, really.

14:19 So the goal isn't to remember everything,

14:20 the goal is to be selective about your brain changes.

14:23 And when we talk about brain changes,

14:25 I want to highlight adaptive changes.

14:28 There's a whole category of things that we're going to discuss

14:30 when we talk about traumatic brain injury and dementia,

14:33 a topic for a future episode,

14:35 about all the things that happen when you

14:38 have damaged your nervous system or you're missing neurons.

14:40 But, today, I really want to talk about

14:42 something that I think is very near and dear

14:44 to many of your hearts, which is

14:45 what are the behaviors that you can engage in

14:47 to access neuroplasticity

14:51 so that then you can apply that plasticity

14:54 to the specific things that you want to learn or unlearn.

14:58 This is very important because I don't want people to

15:02 get the impression that we're really talking about

15:04 learning a bunch of motor movements.

15:05 You may be an athlete, you might not be an athlete.

15:07 You might want to learn how to dance, you might not.

15:10 You might want to learn how to dance

15:11 and get better at remembering

15:13 and learning languages, for instance,

15:14 or at unlearning some difficult emotional experience,

15:19 meaning you want to remove the emotional load

15:21 from a particular memory of an experience.

15:24 What we're talking about today is using behavior as a gate

15:27 to enter states of mind and body

15:30 that allow you to access plasticity.

15:35 So let's talk about the different kinds of plasticity

15:37 that are available to us.

15:39 Because those will point directly

15:41 towards the type of protocols that we should engage in

15:44 to change ourselves for the better,

15:46 the so-called adaptive plasticity.

15:50 There is something called representational plasticity.

15:52 Representational plasticity is just your

15:55 internal representation of the outside world.

15:57 So you have a map of auditory space, believe it or not,

16:00 meaning you have neurons that respond

16:02 when something over on my right happens,

16:04 like I'm [snaps fingers] snapping my fingers

16:05 over to my right.

16:06 I can't snap as well on my left,

16:07 which is the whole thing unto itself.

16:10 [snaps fingers]

16:11 Yeah, weak over there on the left side.

16:12 But when I do that,

16:14 there are different neurons respond to those.

16:17 We have a map of visual space.

16:19 Certain neurons are seeing things

16:20 in certain portions of visual space and not others.

16:22 We have a map of motor space,

16:25 meaning when we move our limbs in particular directions,

16:27 we know where those limbs are

16:30 because even if we can't see them,

16:32 we have what's called proprioceptive feedback.

16:34 So we have knowledge about where our limbs are.

16:36 In fact, people that lack certain neurons

16:39 for proprioceptive feedback,

16:41 they are very poor at controlling their motor behavior.

16:44 They get injured a lot.

16:45 It's actually a terrible situation.

16:47 So we've got all these representations inside

16:51 and we have maps of our motor commands.

16:56 We know that, for instance, if I want to reach out

16:58 and grab the pen in front of me,

16:59 that I need to generate a certain amount of force.

17:01 So I rarely overshoot, I rarely miss the pen.

17:06 Our maps of the motor world

17:08 and our maps of the sensory world are merged.

17:12 The way to create plasticity

17:16 is to create mismatches or errors in how we perform things.

17:21 And this I think is an amazing

17:23 and important feature of neuroplasticity

17:25 that is highly underappreciated.

17:28 The way to create plasticity

17:30 is to send signals to the brain that something is wrong,

17:35 something is different, and something isn't being achieved.

17:38 I think this will completely reframe

17:40 the way that most people think about plasticity.

17:42 Most of us think about plasticity as,

17:44 "Okay, we're going to get into this

17:45 optimal learning state or flow,

17:47 and then suddenly we're going to be able

17:49 to do all the things that we wish that we could do."

17:51 Well, I hate to break it to you, but flow

17:53 is an expression of what we already know how to do.

17:56 It is not a state for learning.

17:58 And I'm willing to go to bat with any of

18:00 the flo-wa-nis-tas out there

18:02 that want to challenge me on that one.

18:04 Flow is an expression of nervous system capabilities

18:08 that are already embedded in us.

18:10 Errors and making errors

18:13 out of sync with what we would like to do

18:16 is how our nervous system is cued

18:18 through very distinct biological mechanisms

18:21 that something isn't going right.

18:23 And, therefore, certain neurochemicals are deployed

18:26 that signal the neural circuits that they have to change.

18:30 So let's talk about the experiments

18:32 that support what I just said.

18:33 'Cause I'm about to tell you that making errors

18:36 over and over and over again

18:38 is the route to shaping your nervous system

18:40 so that it performs better and better and better.

18:43 And I'm not going to tell you

18:44 that the last rep of a set where you hit failure in the gym

18:47 is anything like neuroplasticity.

18:50 You hear that too that it's pushing to that point of a cliff

18:54 where you just can't function anymore,

18:55 that's the signal.

18:56 That's not the signal.

18:57 That's a distinct neuromuscular phenomenon

18:59 that bears zero resemblance

19:01 to what it takes to get neuroplasticity.

19:03 So let's talk about errors and making errors

19:06 and why and how that triggers the release of chemicals

19:09 that then allow us to not just

19:11 learn the thing that we're doing in the motor sense,

19:13 play the piano, dance, et cetera,

19:15 but it also creates an environment,

19:18 a milieu within the brain,

19:19 that allows us to then go learn how to couple or uncouple

19:24 a particular emotion to an experience,

19:26 or better language learning,

19:27 or better mathematical learning.

19:29 It's a really fundamental aspect of how we're built.

19:33 And when you look at it, it's actually very straightforward.

19:36 It's a series of logical steps

19:37 that once you learn how to open those hatches,

19:40 it becomes very straightforward to deploy.

19:43 Last episode, we discussed

19:44 some of the basic principles of neuroplasticity.

19:47 If you didn't hear that episode,

19:49 no problem, I'll just review it quickly,

19:52 which is that it's a falsehood

19:54 that everything that we do and experience changes our brain.

19:58 The brain changes when certain neurochemicals,

20:00 namely acetylcholine, epinephrin, and dopamine,

20:04 are released in ways and in the specific times

20:07 that allow for neural circuits to be marked for change.

20:10 And then the change occurs later during sleep.

20:13 I'll review that later, but, basically,

20:14 you need a certain cocktail of chemicals

20:16 released in the brain in order for a particular behavior

20:19 to reshape the way that our brain works.

20:22 So the question really is

20:23 what allows those neurochemicals to be released?

20:26 And last episode, I talked all about focus.

20:28 If you haven't seen it or heard that episode,

20:31 you might want to check it out,

20:32 about some specific tools and practices

20:35 that can allow you to build up your capacity for focus

20:37 and release certain chemicals in that cocktail.

20:40 But, today, we're going to talk about

20:41 the other chemicals in the cocktail, in particular dopamine.

20:45 And we're really going to center our discussion around

20:49 this issue of making errors

20:51 and why making errors is actually the signal

20:54 that tells the brain, "Okay, it's time to change,"

20:57 or, more generally, it's time to pay attention to things

21:01 so that you change.

21:03 And I really want to distinguish this point really clearly,

21:07 which is that I'm going to talk today a lot about

21:09 motor and vestibular, meaning balance programs,

21:12 but not just for learning motor commands and balance,

21:16 not just for learning new motor skills and balance,

21:18 but also for setting a stage

21:20 or a kind of condition in your brain

21:22 where you can go learn other things as well.

21:25 Let's talk about some classic experiments

21:27 that really nail down

21:29 what's most important in this discussion about plasticity.

21:33 As I mentioned last episode,

21:34 and I'll just tell you right now again,

21:36 the brain is incredibly plastic

21:39 from about birth until about age 25.

21:42 Passive experience will shape the brain

21:44 just because of the way that the chemicals

21:46 that are sloshing around in there

21:48 and the way that the neurons are arranged

21:50 and all sorts of things.

21:51 The brain's job is to customize itself

21:53 in response to its experience.

21:55 And then somewhere about 25,

21:57 it's not like the day after your 26th birthday,

21:59 plasticity closes,

22:01 there's a kind of tapering off of plasticity,

22:03 and you need different mechanisms to engage plasticity

22:07 as an adult.

22:09 We're mostly going to be talking about adult plasticity today,

22:11 but I got a lot of questions about,

22:13 "Well, what about if I'm younger than 25?"

22:15 First of all, that's great.

22:19 I wish I had a time machine, but I don't.

22:22 Because as I've said before,

22:23 the stinger is when you're young,

22:25 your brain is very plastic,

22:26 but you have less control over your experience.

22:28 When you're older, generally,

22:30 you have more control of your experience,

22:31 but your brain is less plastic.

22:33 So if you're already asking the question

22:35 as a 20-year-old or a 15-year-old, "What can I do now

22:37 that's really going to enhanced my brain?"

22:40 I guess the simple answer would be an aside,

22:43 which would be get the broadest education you can possible.

22:46 That means math, chemistry, physics, literature, music,

22:50 learn how to play an instrument.

22:51 I'm saying that 'cause I wish I had, et cetera.

22:54 Get a broad training in a number of things

22:56 and find the thing that really

22:58 captures your passion and excitement,

22:59 and then put a ton of additional effort there.

23:03 That's what I recommend,

23:04 including emotional development.

23:06 Maybe a topic for a future episode.

23:08 But if you are an adult,

23:12 or if you are a young person,

23:14 knowing how to tap into these plasticity mechanisms

23:17 is very powerful.

23:19 You need these chemicals deployed in the nervous system

23:22 in order to mark whatever nerve cells

23:25 happen to be firing in the time afterward for change.

23:27 And people are obsessed with asking,

23:30 "What supplements, what drugs, what conditions,

23:34 what machines will allow for that?"

23:37 But there's a natural set of conditions that allow for that.

23:40 When we came into this world,

23:42 we learned to take our different maps of experience,

23:47 our motor maps, our auditory maps, our visual maps.

23:50 And to link them, we align those maps.

23:53 The simplest example is the one I gave before.

23:56 If I hear something off to my right, like I click like that,

23:58 it could come from my fingers snapping

24:00 or it could come from something

24:02 generated by somebody else or something else to my right,

24:05 I look to my right.

24:07 If I hear it on the left, I look to my left.

24:09 If I hear it right in front of me,

24:11 I keep looking right in front of me.

24:12 And if I hear it behind me, I turn around.

24:14 And that's because our maps of visual space

24:18 and our maps of auditory space

24:21 and our maps of motor space

24:23 are aligned to one another in perfect register.

24:27 It's an incredible feature of our nervous system.

24:29 It takes place in a structure

24:30 called the superior colliculus,

24:31 although you don't need to know that name.

24:33 Superior colliculus has layers,

24:35 literally stacks of neurons like in a sandwich

24:39 where the zero point right in front of me,

24:42 or maybe 10 or 15 degrees off to my right

24:45 or 10 or 15 degrees off to my left,

24:47 are aligned so that the auditory neurons,

24:50 the ones that care about sounds,

24:52 at 15 degrees to my right,

24:54 sit directly below the neurons

24:56 that look at 15 degrees to my right in my visual system.

25:00 And when I reach over to this direction,

25:03 there's a signal that's sent down through those layers

25:06 that says 15 degrees off to the right

25:07 is the direction to look, it's the direction to listen,

25:11 and it's the direction to move if I need to move.

25:14 So there's an alignment.

25:15 And this is really powerful.

25:16 And this is what allows us to move through space

25:18 and function in our lives in a really fluid way.

25:22 It's set up during development.

25:24 But there have been some important experiments

25:26 that have revealed that these maps are plastic,

25:30 meaning they can shift, they're subject to neuroplasticity.

25:34 And there are specific rules that allow us to shift them.

25:38 So here's the key experiment.

25:40 The key experiment was done by a colleague of mine

25:44 who's now retired but whose work is absolutely fundamental

25:47 in the field of neuroplasticity, Eric Knudsen.

25:50 The Knudsen Lab,

25:51 and many of the Knudsen Lab scientific offspring,

25:54 showed that if one is to wear prism glasses

25:59 that shift the visual field,

26:02 that eventually there'll be a shift

26:05 in the representation of the auditory motor maps too.

26:08 Now, what they initially did is

26:09 they looked at young subjects,

26:12 and what they did is they moved the visual world

26:16 by making them wear prism glasses.

26:18 So that, for instance, if my pen is out in front of me

26:21 at five degrees off center,

26:23 so just a little bit off center,

26:24 if you're listening to this, this would be like

26:26 just a little bit to my right,

26:28 but in these prism glasses,

26:30 I actually see that pen way over far on my right.

26:34 So it's actually here, but I see it over there

26:37 because I'm wearing prisms on my eyes.

26:39 What happens is in the first day or so,

26:41 you ask people or you ask animal subjects or whatever

26:45 to reach for this object,

26:47 and they reach to the wrong place

26:49 because they're seeing it where it isn't.

26:52 This gets especially complicated

26:53 when you start including sounds.

26:55 When you have a thing off to your right making a sound,

26:59 but the thing is actually right here.

27:01 So you're hearing the sound at one location

27:03 and you're seeing the object at another location

27:06 because you're wearing these prisms.

27:07 So your image of the world is totally distorted.

27:11 Or, in experiments done by other groups,

27:13 they wear glasses,

27:15 subjects wore glasses that completely invert

27:18 the visual world so that everything is upside down,

27:20 which is an extreme example of these representational maps

27:24 being flipped or shifted.

27:26 But what you find is that in young individuals,

27:29 within a day or two,

27:31 they start adjusting their motor behavior

27:34 in exactly the right way

27:36 so that they always reach to the correct location.

27:39 So they hear a sound at one location,

27:40 they see the object that ought to make that sound

27:43 at a different location,

27:44 and they somehow are able to adjust their motor behavior

27:48 to reach to the correct location.

27:50 It's incredible.

27:51 It's absolutely incredible.

27:52 Or, in the case of the people

27:53 who would look at the world upside down,

27:55 they somehow are able to navigate this upside down world

27:59 even though we're completely used to

28:01 our feet being on the floor and not on the ceiling

28:04 and people not walking at us

28:05 by hanging off the ceiling like bats.

28:07 Amazing.

28:08 And what it tells us is that these maps

28:11 that are aligned to one another

28:12 can move and shift and rotate,

28:15 and even flip themselves.

28:17 And it happens best in young individuals.

28:21 If you do this in older individuals,

28:23 in most cases, it takes a very long time

28:26 for the maps to shift,

28:27 and in some cases they never shift.

28:29 So this is a very experimental scenario,

28:31 but it's an important one to understand

28:33 because it really tamps down the fact

28:36 that we have the capacity to create dramatic shifts

28:41 in our representation of the outside world.

28:45 So how can we get plasticity as adults

28:49 that mimics the plasticity

28:51 that we get when we are juveniles?

28:53 Well, the Knudsen Lab and other labs have looked at this,

28:56 and it's really interesting.

28:57 First of all, we have to ask,

28:59 what is the signal for plasticity?

29:00 Is it just having prism glasses on?

29:02 No, because they did that experiment and ruled that out.

29:05 Is it just the fact that the visual thing

29:09 appears to be far over to my right

29:11 when in fact it's right in front of me?

29:13 No.

29:14 The signal that generates the plasticity

29:17 is the making of errors.

29:21 It's the reaches and failures

29:23 that signal to the nervous system

29:26 that this is not working.

29:29 And, therefore, the shifts start to take place.

29:32 And this is so fundamentally important

29:34 because I think most people think,

29:36 "Oh, well, practice is going to be

29:38 I have to access beginner's mind,"

29:40 which is a great concept, actually,

29:41 it's about approaching things expecting to make errors,

29:43 which is great.

29:44 I think I am a believer in beginner's mind.

29:47 But people understandably get frustrated,

29:50 like they're trying to learn a piece on the piano

29:52 and they can't do it,

29:54 or they're trying to write a piece of code,

29:55 or they're trying to access some sort of motor behavior,

29:57 and they can't do it,

29:58 and the frustration drives them crazy,

30:00 [indistinct] "I can't do it, I can't do it,"

30:01 when they don't realize that [laughs] the errors themselves

30:05 are signaling to the brain and nervous system,

30:07 "Something's not working."

30:09 And of course the brain doesn't understand

30:11 the words something isn't working.

30:13 The brain doesn't even understand frustration

30:15 as an emotional state.

30:16 The brain understands the neurochemicals that are released,

30:20 namely epinephrine and acetylcholine,

30:24 but also, and we'll get into this,

30:26 the molecule dopamine

30:27 when we start to approximate the correct behavior

30:30 just a little bit,

30:31 and we start getting a little bit right.

30:34 So what happens is when we make errors,

30:37 the nervous system kind of,

30:38 I don't want to say freaks out because it's a very

30:40 mechanistic and controlled situation,

30:42 but the nervous system starts releasing neurotransmitters

30:45 and neuromodulators

30:46 that say, "We better change something in the circuitry."

30:49 And so errors are the basis [laughs]

30:51 for neuroplasticity and for learning.

30:53 And I wish that this was more prominent out there.

30:56 I guess this is why I'm saying it.

30:58 And humans do not like this feeling of frustration

31:02 and making errors.

31:03 The few that do do exceedingly well in whatever pursuits

31:07 they happen to be involved in.

31:09 The ones that don't, generally don't do well.

31:12 They generally don't learn much.

31:13 And if you think about it,

31:14 why would your nervous system ever change?

31:17 Why would it ever change?

31:18 Unless there was something to be afraid of,

31:20 something that made us feel awful

31:22 will signal that the nervous system needs to change,

31:24 or there's an error in our performance.

31:26 So it turns out that the feedback of these errors,

31:30 the reaching to the wrong location

31:32 starts to release a number of things.

31:34 And now you've heard about them many times,

31:36 but this would be epinephrin.

31:37 It increases alertness,

31:40 acetylcholine, focus.

31:41 And this is why frustration

31:43 that leads us to just kind of quit

31:45 and walk away from the endeavor is the absolute worst thing.

31:49 Because if acetylcholine is released,

31:51 it creates an opportunity to focus on the error margin,

31:55 the distance between what it is that you're doing

31:57 and what it is that you would like to do.

31:59 And then the nervous system starts to

32:02 make changes almost immediately

32:04 in order to try and get the behavior right.

32:06 And when you start getting it even a little bit right,

32:09 that third molecule comes online or is released,

32:12 which is dopamine,

32:13 which allows for the plastic changes to occur very fast.

32:16 Now, this is what all happens very naturally

32:18 in young brains.

32:19 But in old brains, it tends to be pretty slow,

32:22 except for in two conditions.

32:25 So let me just pause and just say this,

32:26 if you are uncomfortable making errors

32:29 and you get frustrated easily,

32:34 if you leverage that frustration

32:37 toward drilling deeper into the endeavor,

32:40 you are setting yourself up for a terrific

32:43 set of plasticity mechanisms to engage.

32:46 But if you take that frustration

32:47 and you walk away from the endeavor,

32:49 you are essentially setting up plasticity

32:52 to rewire you according to what happens afterwards,

32:55 which is generally feeling pretty miserable.

32:57 So now you can kind of start to appreciate

32:59 why it is that continuing to drill into a process

33:02 to the point of frustration

33:03 but then staying with that process for a little bit longer,

33:06 and I'll define exactly what I mean by a little bit,

33:08 is the most important thing for adult learning

33:14 as well as childhood learning,

33:15 but adult learning in particular.

33:17 Now, the Knudsen Lab did two

33:18 very important sets of experiments.

33:21 The first one was published in "Nature,'

33:24 very important study,

33:26 which showed that juveniles can make these massive shifts

33:31 in their map representations,

33:32 meaning you can shift the visual world

33:33 using visual prisms a huge amount and very quickly.

33:37 Young individuals can

33:39 shift their representations of the world

33:41 so that they learn to reach to the correct location.

33:44 They get a lot of plasticity all at once,

33:47 and it happens very fast in a period of just a couple days.

33:51 In adults, it tends to be very slow

33:54 and most individuals never actually accomplish

33:56 the full map shift.

33:58 They don't get the plasticity.

34:00 Here we're talking about map shifts,

34:01 but this could be learning a new language,

34:04 this could be any number of different things

34:06 that [indistinct] we're attempting.

34:07 So what we're saying is what I already said before,

34:09 which is that we learn very well as youngsters,

34:11 but not as adults after 25.

34:15 But then what they did

34:17 is they started making the increment of change smaller.

34:20 So instead of shifting the world a huge amount

34:24 by putting prisms that shifted that the visual world

34:27 all the way over to the right,

34:29 they did this incrementally.

34:30 So, first, they put on prisms

34:32 that shifted it just a little bit,

34:34 just like seven degrees I believe was the exact number.

34:37 And then it was 14 degrees,

34:38 and then it was 28 degrees.

34:40 And so what they found was that the adult nervous system

34:42 can tolerate smaller and smaller errors over time,

34:47 but that you can stack those errors

34:49 so that you can get a lot of plasticity.

34:51 Put simply, incremental learning as an adult

34:54 is absolutely essential.

34:55 You are not going to get massive shifts

34:57 in your representation to the outside world.

35:00 So how do you make small errors as opposed to big errors?

35:03 Well, the key is smaller bouts of focused learning

35:09 for smaller bits of information.

35:13 It's a mistake to try and learn a lot of information

35:17 in one learning about as an adult.

35:19 What these papers from the Knudsen Lab show,

35:22 and what others have gone on to show,

35:24 is that the adult nervous system is fully capable of

35:27 engaging in a huge amount of plasticity,

35:30 but you need to do it in smaller increments

35:32 per learning epoch or per learning episode.

35:35 So how would you do this?

35:36 Well, say for instance, I'm terrible at free throws,

35:39 so let's say I wanted to learn free throws.

35:41 I'm 45 years old, so I'm well past the 25 and under mark.

35:47 I'm going to make errors.

35:48 I'm going to make a lot errors.

35:50 If I go into learning free throws

35:53 knowing that errors are the gate to plasticity,

35:59 well, then I feel a little bit better,

36:00 but I still have to aim for

36:01 the rim of the basket or the net.

36:05 Basically, showing how little I know about basketball.

36:08 But I think I know the general themes around basketball,

36:10 involves a net, a back board, and a ball, of course.

36:13 So I go to the free throw line and I'll throw.

36:15 How long should I go?

36:16 Well, until I'm hitting the point of frustration.

36:20 And at that point, continuing probably for

36:23 anywhere from 10 to 100 more trials

36:26 should be my limit, right?

36:28 That should be my limit if I want to

36:30 improve some specific aspect of the motor behavior.

36:34 And so the question then is

36:36 what should I be paying attention to?

36:37 What should I be focusing on?

36:38 Well, obviously trying to get the ball into the basket.

36:40 But the beauty of motor learning

36:42 is that the circuits for auditory and visual and motor

36:46 more or less teach themselves.

36:48 I don't necessarily have to be paying attention to

36:51 exactly the contact of my fingers with the ball

36:55 or some random feature like

36:57 whether or not I'm bending my knees or not.

36:59 The key is to try a number of different parameters

37:02 until I start to approximate

37:04 the behavior that I want to get a little bit better,

37:06 and then trying to get consistent about that.

37:08 Now, many of you involved in sports learning will say,

37:10 "Okay, well, that's obvious,

37:11 it's just incremental learning."

37:13 But the key thing is in those errors.

37:15 By isolating the errors and making a number of errors

37:19 in a particular aspect of the motor movement,

37:22 it signals to the brain that it's plastic.

37:24 And if I leave that episode of going

37:27 and trying to learn how to shoot free throws,

37:30 my brain is still plastic.

37:31 Plasticity is a state of the brain and nervous system.

37:34 It's not just geared toward the specific thing

37:37 I'm trying to learn.

37:38 So there are two aspects to plasticity

37:40 that I think we really need to highlight.

37:41 One is that there's plasticity geared toward

37:44 the thing that you are trying to learn specifically.

37:46 And then there are states of mind and body

37:48 that allow us to access plasticity.

37:51 Now, toward the end of this episode,

37:53 I'm going to spell out specific protocols

37:54 in a little more detail.

37:55 That free throw example

37:57 might not correlate with what you want to learn.

38:00 Actually, I don't have a huge desire to learn free throws.

38:02 I've more or less given up on basketball,

38:06 and free throws in particular.

38:07 But I think that it's important to understand

38:10 that motor movements are the most straightforward way

38:13 to access states of plasticity.

38:15 And that can be for sake of learning the motor movement

38:17 or for sake of accessing plasticity more generally.

38:21 One very important aspect to getting plasticity as an adult

38:27 is not just smaller increments, meaning shorter bouts.

38:30 So I gave an example of

38:31 another 100 free throws or something,

38:33 but going out there and just getting 10,000 free throws

38:37 all at once or packing as much as I can into one episode

38:41 is not going to be as efficient for me

38:43 as shorter bouts of intense learning as an adult.

38:47 Because the error signals are not as well-defined

38:51 to my nervous system.

38:52 It's not going to know what needs to change.

38:54 And so this is really the key element

38:55 of incremental learning,

38:57 is that you're trying to signal to the nervous system

38:59 at least one component that needs to change.

39:01 The nervous system needs to know what the error is.

39:04 Now, when I shoot free throws, Lord knows

39:06 there are a lot of different kinds of errors that happen,

39:08 probably the way I'm bending my knees,

39:09 the arc of the ball, the way I'm organizing my shoulders,

39:12 probably where my eyes are, lots of things.

39:15 So which ones to focus on?

39:16 And that's what I said before,

39:18 the beauty of the motor system is

39:19 I don't have to worry about all of that.

39:21 I just need to get the reps in a number of times,

39:25 and the nervous system will figure out

39:27 how far off my motor commands are,

39:30 at the level of these maps that I described earlier,

39:32 how far those deviate from the desired behavior,

39:37 getting the ball into the basket,

39:40 and it will start making adjustments.

39:42 But as I make adjustments,

39:45 or as my nervous system makes adjustments for me,

39:47 the key thing is to not start adding

39:49 a variety of new errors because then it gets confused.

39:52 And so this is why short learning bouts

39:54 are absolutely essential.

39:55 So let's say it's for learning an instrument as an adult.

39:59 Probably anywhere from 7 minutes

40:03 to 30 minutes,

40:05 provided that you're fully attending, you're very focused,

40:09 is going to be a pretty significant stimulus

40:12 to inspire plasticity in the nervous system.

40:15 Now, there is one way to get a lot of plasticity

40:19 all at once as an adult.

40:20 There is that kind of Holy Grail thing of

40:23 getting massive plasticity

40:26 as you would when you were a young person but as an adult.

40:31 And the Knudsen Lab revealed this

40:34 by setting a very serious contingency on the learning.

40:40 What they did was they had a situation where

40:43 subjects had to find food

40:46 that was displaced in their visual world,

40:48 again, by putting prisms,

40:49 and they had to find the food,

40:51 and the food made a noise,

40:52 there was a noise set to kind of the location of the food

40:54 through an array of speakers.

40:56 Basically, what they found was that

40:58 if people have to adjust their visual world

41:01 in order to get food,

41:02 the plasticity would eventually occur,

41:04 but it was very slow as an adult.

41:06 It was very, very slow.

41:09 Unless they actually had to hunt that food.

41:14 In order to eat at all, they needed plasticity.

41:19 And then what happened was remarkable.

41:21 What they observed is that the plasticity as an adult

41:24 can be as dramatic, as robust as it is in a young person

41:29 or in a young animal subject,

41:32 provided that there's a serious incentive

41:35 for the plasticity to occur.

41:37 And this is absolutely important to understand,

41:39 which is that how badly we need or want the plasticity

41:44 determines how fast that plasticity will arrive,

41:47 which is incredible because

41:49 the brain is just neurons and soup of chemicals.

41:53 But this means that the importance of something,

41:55 how important something is to us,

41:57 actually gates the rate of plasticity

41:59 and the magnitude of plasticity.

42:01 And this is why just passively going through most things,

42:06 going through the motions, as we say,

42:07 or just getting our reps in quote, unquote,

42:10 is not sufficient to get the nervous system to change.

42:14 This study, a beautiful study,

42:18 published in the journal of neuroscience shows

42:20 that if we actually have to

42:23 accomplish something in order to eat

42:26 or in order to get our ration of income,

42:29 we will reshape our nervous system very, very quickly.

42:33 So the nervous system has a capacity

42:36 to change at a tremendous rate,

42:39 to an enormous degree at any stage of life

42:43 provided it's important enough that that happen.

42:46 And I think some of you might be saying,

42:48 "Well, duh, that's obvious.

42:49 If it's really crucial,

42:51 then, of course, it's going to change faster."

42:53 But it didn't have to be that way.

42:55 And for most people who are trying to learn how to

42:57 learn faster or learn better,

43:00 they probably, in most cases,

43:04 they are hitting a limit

43:07 because the need to change is not crucial enough.

43:11 And I think there are a number of places

43:13 where this has important relevance

43:15 in the people who are battling addiction, for instance.

43:19 I will be the first to say that

43:21 I sympathize with the fact that addictions

43:23 have a biological component.

43:25 There's clearly cases where people

43:27 struggle tremendously to change their behavior

43:30 and their nervous system, in some cases, is so disrupted

43:33 by whatever substance they've been abusing

43:35 or behavior that they've been engaging in,

43:36 that it's that much harder for them to change.

43:39 But we've also seen incredible examples where when people

43:43 have to change from an internal standpoint,

43:46 from their own belief and desire to change,

43:49 that massive change is possible.

43:52 And so I think that the studies that Knudsen did

43:55 showing the incremental learning

43:57 can create a huge degree of plasticity as an adult

44:00 as well as when the contingency is very high,

44:04 meaning we need to eat, or we need to make an income,

44:07 or we need to do

44:08 something that's vitally important for us,

44:11 that plasticity can happen in these enormous leaps

44:15 just like they can in adolescence and young adulthood.

44:19 That points to the fact that it has to be

44:21 a neurochemical system.

44:22 There has to be an underlying mechanism.

44:25 This wasn't a case of sticking a wire into the brain

44:28 or taking a particular drug.

44:30 All the chemicals that we're about to talk about

44:33 are released from drugstores, if you will, [laughs]

44:36 chemical stores that already reside in all of our brains.

44:39 And the key is how to tap into those stores.

44:43 And so we're going to next talk about

44:45 what are the specific behaviors

44:47 that liberate particular categories of chemicals

44:51 that allow us to make the most of incremental learning

44:54 and that set the stage for plasticity that is similar enough

44:59 or mimics these high contingency states,

45:02 like the need to get food,

45:03 or really create a sense of internal urgency,

45:06 chemical urgency, if you will.

45:09 If you've heard previous episodes of this podcast,

45:12 you may have heard me talk about ultradian rhythm,

45:14 which are these 90-minute rhythms

45:16 that break up our 24-hour day.

45:20 They help break up our sleep into different cycles of sleep

45:23 like REM sleep and non-REM sleep.

45:28 They break up our day in ways that

45:31 allow us to learn best within 90-minute cycles, et cetera.

45:34 So some of you might be saying,

45:35 "Wait, you've been talking about ultradian cycles,

45:37 and a moment ago you were talking about

45:39 7-minute or 12-minute or 30-minute learning cycles.

45:42 Today, we're really talking about how to tap into plasticity

45:46 through the completion of a task

45:49 or working towards something repetitively and making errors.

45:53 And so just to frame this

45:56 in the context of the ultradian cycle,

45:58 you might sit down,

45:59 decide that you're going to learn conversational French,

46:04 which would mean that you probably

46:05 don't already speak French.

46:06 So you're going to sit down,

46:07 you're going to decide you're going to learn

46:09 some nouns and some verbs,

46:11 you might do some practice set.

46:12 The ultradian cycle says that for the first

46:15 5 to 10 minutes of doing that, your mind is going to drift

46:19 and your focus will probably kick in,

46:21 provided that you're restricting your visual world

46:24 to just the material in front of you,

46:26 something we talked about last episode,

46:28 somewhere around the 10 or 15-minute mark.

46:31 And then at best you're probably going to get about an hour of

46:34 a deliberate kind of tunnel vision learning in there.

46:38 Your mind will drift.

46:39 And then toward the end of that,

46:42 what is now an hour and 10 or hour and 20 minute cycle,

46:46 your brain will sort of start to flicker in and out,

46:48 you might start thinking about what you need to eat

46:50 or the fact that you have to use the bathroom or something.

46:52 And then by 90 minutes, it's probably time

46:53 to just stop the learning about and go do something else,

46:56 maybe return for a second learning about later,

47:00 maybe take a nap afterwards or something

47:02 to enhance the learning.

47:04 It's going to happen within about a 90-minute block.

47:06 You're going to go through that cycle of learning.

47:09 But when I refer to the 7 or 12

47:12 or 30 minutes of making errors,

47:13 what I mean is when you're really in a mode of

47:16 repeating errors, not deliberately,

47:19 you're trying your best to accomplish something,

47:20 and you're failing.

47:22 You're absolutely failing.

47:24 You're trying to remember say the sign language alphabet.

47:28 I was trying to teach myself this recently,

47:30 and then I keep repeating and repeating,

47:31 and then get to a certain point where I kept making errors,

47:33 making errors, making errors.

47:35 You want to keep making errors for this period of time

47:39 that I'm saying will last anywhere

47:41 for about 7 to 30 minutes.

47:42 It is exceedingly frustrating,

47:44 but that frustration, it liberates the chemical cues

47:48 that signal that plasticity needs to happen

47:50 and they also signal the particular neurons that are active.

47:56 So in the case of sign language,

47:57 it might be the ones that control my hand movements

47:59 as well as me thinking about what the different letters are.

48:02 It's signaling different opponents within the networks

48:05 between the brain and body,

48:07 and it's trying to figure out,

48:08 "Wait, where are these errors coming from?

48:10 Where are the errors coming from?

48:11 Ah, it's those neurons, they're making the mistakes.

48:14 They're making the mistakes, they're making the mistakes."

48:17 And it essentially highlights that pathway for change.

48:21 And it is the case that when we come back

48:23 a day or two later in a learning about after a nap

48:25 or a night or two of deep rest,

48:27 then what we find is that we can remember certain things

48:30 and the motor pathways work.

48:32 And we don't always get it perfectly,

48:33 but we get a lot of it right.

48:35 Whereas, we got it wrong before.

48:37 So that 7 to 30-minute intense learning about

48:41 is within the ultradian cycle,

48:43 and I want to be clear about that.

48:45 And some people can tolerate many of these per day.

48:47 Most people can only tolerate one or two, maybe three.

48:51 This is intense work.

48:52 If shooting free throws, you could probably do it all day.

48:55 But what I'm talking about

48:57 is really trying to accelerate plasticity

49:00 by having a period of the 7 to 30 minutes per learning about

49:06 that is specifically about making errors.

49:10 I want to really underscore that.

49:12 And it's not about, as I mentioned before,

49:15 coming up with some little hack or trick

49:18 or something of that sort.

49:19 It's really about trying to

49:21 cue the nervous system that something needs to change

49:23 because otherwise it simply won't change.

49:26 Now, there's another aspect to learning,

49:30 I think it's only fair to mention,

49:31 which is that we can all learn very easily

49:36 when there's something very bad happens to us.

49:39 I don't wish this on anyone,

49:41 but it is the case that if something really terrible happens

49:43 that we will have a lifetime memory for that event.

49:47 There are processes that allow us to uncouple

49:50 the emotional load of that event.

49:51 I talked about some of those a few episodes back,

49:55 the episode on dreams, trauma, and hallucinations.

49:57 And we're going to return to trauma release, PTSD,

50:00 and some of those other themes in a future episode.

50:03 But the reason why negative experiences

50:06 can be wired into us so quickly is because

50:09 our nervous system's main job is to keep us safe,

50:12 but at a deeper level, it's because negative experiences

50:15 cue us to the fact that whatever's happening

50:17 that's really bad is very different

50:19 than the other things that tend to happen before.

50:23 Most of our experience doesn't remap us,

50:25 but those negative experiences deploy

50:27 high levels of norepinephrine, high levels of acetylcholine,

50:31 and really make so that

50:34 whatever it is that we experienced in that bad episode

50:38 is essentially queued up,

50:40 and so we're on the lookout for it.

50:42 And this has a number of negative effects

50:44 in terms of psychological and emotional effects,

50:46 but it is really a process designed to keep us safe.

50:50 The other ways in which we can learn more quickly

50:54 besides just making errors

50:56 is when something really surprises us.

50:58 And if we're positively surprised by something

51:01 or we are just flooded with this molecule dopamine,

51:04 then there's a great opportunity for plasticity.

51:08 Dopamine is a molecule that's almost always associated

51:10 with pleasure

51:11 and with the accomplishment of a particular goal,

51:14 but it's really also a molecule of motivation.

51:17 It's a molecule that is released inside of us

51:19 when we think we're on the right path.

51:22 And it does have a capacity to increase neuroplasticity,

51:25 motivation, et cetera.

51:28 It's released in response to a number of natural behaviors,

51:31 just that help with the progression of ours

51:33 and other species,

51:35 things like food, sex,

51:39 in some sense social connection,

51:41 although that's more serotonin,

51:42 and serotonin doesn't have the same

51:45 effects on plasticity quite the same.

51:47 And we'll talk about a few later.

51:49 But dopamine is when we think we're on the right path

51:52 toward an external goal,

51:55 a little bit is released

51:56 and it tends to give us more motivation toward that goal.

51:59 I think everyone could stand to enhance the rate of learning

52:02 by doing the following.

52:04 Learn to attach dopamine, in a subjective way,

52:07 to this process of making errors.

52:10 Because that's really combining two modes of plasticity

52:13 in ways that together can accelerate the plasticity.

52:16 So, earlier, I talked about making errors

52:18 and having a focus about

52:20 of learning that includes making a lot of errors

52:23 inside of that learning about.

52:25 That is going to be frustrating,

52:26 but the frustration itself is the cue,

52:30 and epinephrine will be very high under those conditions.

52:33 But if you can just subjectively

52:36 associate that experience with something good

52:39 and that you want to continue down that path

52:41 as opposed to quitting

52:42 when you hit the point of frustration,

52:43 well then you now start to

52:45 create a synergy between the dopamine that's released

52:48 when we subjectively think something is good,

52:50 or tell ourselves something is good,

52:52 and that situation of making failures.

52:55 In other words, making failing repetitively,

52:59 provided we're engaged in a very specific set of behaviors

53:02 when we do it,

53:03 as well as telling ourselves that those failures

53:05 are good for learning and good for us,

53:07 creates an outsize effect on the rate of plasticity.

53:11 It accelerates plasticity.

53:13 Now, some of you might be asking, and I get asked a lot,

53:16 "Well, how do I get dopamine to be released?

53:18 And can I just tell myself that something is good

53:20 when it's bad?"

53:21 Well, actually yes, believe it or not.

53:23 The thing about dopamine is it's highly subjective.

53:26 What's funny to one person

53:27 is not necessarily funny to the next.

53:28 So it has to have some sense of authenticity for you.

53:32 But if you really want to be learning

53:34 the thing that you're trying to learn,

53:36 that should be reason enough to tell yourself,

53:38 "Well, I'm frustrated,

53:40 but the frustration is the source of accelerated learning."

53:44 Dopamine is one of these incredible molecules

53:47 that both can be released

53:50 according to things that are hardwired in us

53:52 to release dopamine.

53:53 Again, things like food, sex, warmth when we're cold,

53:57 cool environments when we're too warm.

53:59 It's that kind of pleasure molecule overall.

54:03 But it's also highly subjective

54:07 what releases dopamine in one person versus the next.

54:10 Everyone releases dopamine in response to those very basic

54:13 kind of behaviors and activities,

54:15 but dopamine is also released

54:18 according to what we subjectively believe is good for us.

54:21 And that's what's so powerful about it.

54:22 In fact, a book that I highly recommend,

54:24 if you want to read more about dopamine,

54:26 is a book that frankly I wish I had written,

54:27 it's such a wonderful book,

54:28 it's called "The Molecule of More."

54:30 And it really talks about dopamine

54:32 not just as a molecule associated with reward,

54:35 but a molecule associated with motivation and pursuit,

54:38 and just how subjectively controlled dopamine can be.

54:41 So make lots of errors,

54:44 tell yourself that those errors are important

54:46 and good for your overall learning goals,

54:48 so learn to attach dopamine,

54:50 meaning release dopamine in your brain

54:53 when you start to make errors,

54:55 keep the bouts of learning relatively short

54:58 if you're an adult.

54:59 Younger people can probably engage

55:02 in more bouts of learning.

55:03 And it's probably one of the reasons why

55:05 they learn so much faster.

55:07 They can just pack so much more information

55:09 into the brains and nervous systems compared to adults.

55:11 It's a little bit like,

55:13 I'll use the example of performance-enhancing drugs.

55:16 Some of those drugs probably do enhance performance

55:18 at the level of increasing red blood cell count, et cetera.

55:21 But a lot of what those drugs do is they allow

55:24 athletes to recover faster so they can just train more.

55:27 They allow them to do more work.

55:29 And so being a child is a little bit like

55:30 being in a performance enhanced brain milieu.

55:33 Their brains are kind of on natural, healthy neurochemicals

55:38 that afford them a lot more learning should they pursue it.

55:41 So this goes back to my advice for young people early on.

55:45 If you're young, what should you do?

55:47 Learn as much as you can

55:48 about as many things as you possibly can.

55:50 And I suggest specializing in something.

55:52 I guess I'm not in a position to give anyone direct advice,

55:56 but I would say, hopefully,

55:59 by about age 30, hopefully younger,

56:01 you have some sense of what excites you

56:03 and try and get really good at that thing,

56:05 provided it serves the world for better.

56:09 But that's all I'll say in terms of parenting advice.

56:12 It's not my place.

56:14 But maybe sometime I'll have an episode

56:16 completely devoted to sort of youth and learning in youth.

56:21 But once you're attaching dopamine

56:23 to this process of making errors,

56:26 then I start getting lots of questions

56:28 that really are the right questions,

56:30 which are, how often should I do this?

56:33 And when should I be doing this and at what time?

56:35 Well, I've talked a little bit about this

56:36 in previous episodes,

56:37 but as long as we're now kind of into the nitty-gritty

56:39 of tools and application,

56:41 each of us have some natural times throughout the day

56:44 when we are going to be much better

56:47 at tolerating these errors

56:49 and much more focused on what it is that we're trying to do.

56:52 Last episode was about focus,

56:54 but chances are that you can't focus as well at 4:00 pm

56:57 as you can at 10:00 am.

56:59 It differs for everybody depending on when you're sleeping

57:02 and your kind of natural chemistry and rhythms.

57:04 But find the time or times of day

57:07 when you naturally have the highest mental acuity,

57:11 and that's really when you want to engage

57:12 in these learning bouts.

57:14 And then get to the point where you're making errors

57:16 and then keep making errors for 7 to 30 minutes.

57:19 Just keep making those errors and drill through it.

57:22 And you're almost seeking frustration.

57:24 And if you can find some pleasure in the frustration,

57:26 yes, that is a state that exists,

57:28 you have created the optimal neurochemical milieu

57:31 for learning that thing.

57:33 But then here's the beauty of it,

57:35 you also have created the optimal milieu

57:37 for learning other things afterward.

57:40 If you leave that about of,

57:42 I gave the example of free throws,

57:43 or maybe it's playing tennis,

57:44 or maybe it's some other skill,

57:47 and you sit down to read a book,

57:49 your brain is in a heightened state

57:51 to learn and retain the information.

57:54 Because those chemicals don't get released

57:56 and then shut down.

57:57 You're creating a whole milieu,

57:59 an environment of these chemicals.

58:01 And the tale of how long these chemicals stay

58:05 sloshing around in your brain

58:06 has too many factors for me to put a hard number on it.

58:08 It's going to depend on transporters and enzymes

58:10 and all sorts of things.

58:12 But at least for an hour or so I would say,

58:15 you're going to be in a state of heightened learning,

58:18 and the ability to learn,

58:20 not just the motor patterns but cognitive information,

58:22 language information,

58:24 maybe you go to therapy right after that

58:26 and you work on something

58:27 in a very deliberate way that you're trying to work on,

58:29 maybe you don't go to therapy,

58:31 maybe you do something else that's important to you.

58:34 Again, there are just a variety of examples I could give.

58:37 There are a number of things that

58:39 allow us to powerfully access these states of error

58:44 that are kind of surprising but also kind of fun.

58:48 Again, these aren't gimmicks,

58:49 these tap into these basic mechanisms of plasticity.

58:53 And the three that I'd like to talk about next

58:57 are balance,

58:59 meaning the vestibular system,

59:01 as well as the two sides

59:03 of what I call limbic friction or autonomic arousal.

59:07 And if none of that makes sense,

59:08 I'm going to put a fine point on each one of those

59:11 and what it is and why it works

59:13 for opening up neuroplasticity.

59:15 Let's talk about limbic friction.

59:18 Now, limbic friction is not a term

59:19 you're going to find in the textbooks.

59:21 So if any of my colleagues are listening,

59:23 I want to repeat limbic friction,

59:25 I realize is not something you're going to find

59:28 in any of the textbooks.

59:29 But it is an important principle

59:32 that captures a lot of information that is in textbooks,

59:36 both neurobiology and psychology,

59:38 and it has some really important implications.

59:42 Limbic friction is my attempt to give a name to something

59:46 that is more nuanced and mechanistic than stress.

59:50 Because, typically, when we hear about stress,

59:52 we think of heart rate, heartbeat going too fast,

59:55 breathing too fast, sweating,

59:57 and not being in a state that we want,

59:59 we're to alert and we want to be more calm.

1:00:01 And, indeed, that's one condition in which

1:00:05 we have limbic friction,

1:00:06 meaning our limbic system

1:00:08 is taking control of a number of different aspects

1:00:11 of our autonomic or automatic biology.

1:00:15 And we are struggling to control that

1:00:18 through what we call top-down mechanisms.

1:00:20 We're trying to calm down

1:00:21 in order to reduce that level of arousal.

1:00:25 We're all familiar with this,

1:00:26 it's called the stress response.

1:00:27 However, there's another aspect of stress

1:00:30 that's just as important,

1:00:32 which is when we're tired and we're fatigued

1:00:34 and we need to engage,

1:00:36 we need to be more alert than we are.

1:00:38 And so what I call limbic friction is really

1:00:41 designed to describe the fact that when our

1:00:43 autonomic nervous system isn't where we want it,

1:00:45 meaning we're trying to be more alert

1:00:47 or we're trying to be less alert,

1:00:49 both of those feel stressful to people.

1:00:51 The other way to put it is that the word stress

1:00:53 is not a very good word to describe

1:00:55 what most people experience as stressful

1:00:57 because it can either be being too tired or being too alert.

1:01:01 Now, why am I bringing this up

1:01:02 in a discussion about neuroplasticity?

1:01:04 This is not a discussion about stress.

1:01:05 At some point, we will talk about stress

1:01:07 and tools to deal with stress.

1:01:09 But the reason I'm bringing this up is that

1:01:12 in order to access neuroplasticity,

1:01:15 you need these components of focus,

1:01:17 you need the component of attaching subjective reward,

1:01:21 you need to make errors, all this stuff.

1:01:23 And a lot of people find it difficult

1:01:25 to just get into the overall state to access those things.

1:01:30 So now there's a series of gates

1:01:31 that people are having a hard time accessing.

1:01:34 They're too tired and they can't focus, for instance.

1:01:37 Well, here's the beauty of it.

1:01:39 If you are too alert, meaning you're too anxious,

1:01:44 and you want to calm down in order to learn better,

1:01:47 there are things that you can do.

1:01:49 The two that I've spoken about previously

1:01:51 on various podcasts,

1:01:52 and I'll just review them really quickly,

1:01:54 are the double inhale exhale.

1:01:55 So inhaling twice through the nose

1:01:57 and exhaling once through the mouth.

1:01:58 This is not some yoga trick or some hack.

1:02:02 This is what's called a physiological sigh.

1:02:04 It offloads carbon dioxide from the lungs,

1:02:06 it has a number of different effects.

1:02:07 These were described in textbooks dating back to the 30s

1:02:12 and a number of laboratories have explored

1:02:14 the neurocircuitry underlying these

1:02:16 so-called physiological sighs.

1:02:18 That will calm you down faster than anything else

1:02:20 that I'm aware of.

1:02:21 The other thing is starting to remove your tunnel vision.

1:02:25 When you use tunnel vision, you're very focused,

1:02:27 that epinephrine up is released by dilating

1:02:28 your field of gaze, so-called panoramic vision.

1:02:32 Great, so now you can start to

1:02:35 sort of move up and down this level of autonomic arousal.

1:02:39 The key is you want to be in a state of arousal

1:02:42 that's ideally matched

1:02:43 to the thing that you're trying to perform or learn.

1:02:45 So if I'm really anxious

1:02:47 and I can't even pick up the basketball

1:02:49 or I feel like I'm shaking or my muscles are too tight,

1:02:51 I don't have that kind of looseness,

1:02:52 when I move like that, it almost makes it look like

1:02:54 I could throw a free throw, but I miss 95% of the time,

1:03:00 unless the basket is very, very low

1:03:02 and I place it in directly.

1:03:04 I guess that's not a free throw, is it? [laughs]

1:03:06 In any case, the point being that

1:03:08 you want to be in a state of alertness but calm.

1:03:12 And so you need to have ways to calm yourself down

1:03:14 when you're too amped up.

1:03:17 But the other side of limbic friction is important too.

1:03:19 If you are too tired and you can't focus,

1:03:22 well, then it's going to be impossible to even get to

1:03:25 the starting line, so to speak,

1:03:26 for engaging in neuroplasticity

1:03:28 through incremental learning, et cetera.

1:03:30 So in that case, there are other methods

1:03:33 that you can do to wake yourself up.

1:03:34 The best thing you should do is get a good night's sleep,

1:03:36 but that's not always possible,

1:03:37 or use a NSDR, non-sleep deep rest protocol.

1:03:39 But if you've already done those things

1:03:42 or you're simply exhausted for whatever other reason,

1:03:46 then there are other things that I often get asked about,

1:03:49 like sure a cup of coffee or super oxygenation breathing,

1:03:52 which means inhaling more than exhaling

1:03:54 on average in a breathing about.

1:03:57 Now we're sort of getting toward the realm of like

1:03:59 how you could trick your nervous system into waking up.

1:04:01 And if you bring more oxygen in

1:04:02 by making your inhales deeper and longer,

1:04:04 you will become more alert.

1:04:06 You'll start to actually deploy norepinephrine

1:04:08 if you breathe very fast.

1:04:09 So there are things that you can do to move up or down

1:04:12 this so-called autonomic arousal arc.

1:04:15 And what you want to ask before you undergo

1:04:18 any learning about is

1:04:19 how much limbic friction am I experiencing?

1:04:22 Am I too alert and I want to be calmer,

1:04:24 or am I too calm and too sleepy and I want to be more alert?

1:04:28 You're going to need to engage in behaviors

1:04:30 that bring you to the starting line in order to learn.

1:04:35 There are other things that you can do in order to then

1:04:38 learn better and faster besides incremental learning,

1:04:41 and those center on the vestibular system.

1:04:43 And this may come as a surprise to some people,

1:04:45 but probably not as a surprise

1:04:48 to some of you whose professions or whose recreation

1:04:52 involves a lot of motor activity

1:04:54 and sort of what we call high dimensional skill activity,

1:04:56 not just running or cycling

1:04:58 or very linear activities like weightlifting,

1:05:00 but things that involve inversions

1:05:02 and a lot of lateral movement,

1:05:03 actual sports, jumping, diving, rolling,

1:05:06 these kinds of things, gymnastics type stuff.

1:05:09 Why the vestibular system to access neuroplasticity?

1:05:13 Well, we have a hardwired system for balance,

1:05:16 and here's how it works

1:05:17 in as simple terms as I can possibly come up with.

1:05:22 As we move through space,

1:05:26 or even if we're stationary,

1:05:27 there are really three main planes of movement.

1:05:29 Now, I realize some people are just listening to this,

1:05:31 so I'm going to do this for both the folks

1:05:33 that are just listening

1:05:34 and for those of you that are watching on video.

1:05:36 So there are three main modes of movement.

1:05:39 And it turns out that your brain

1:05:40 doesn't really know where your body is,

1:05:42 except through that proprioceptive feedback.

1:05:45 The main way it knows

1:05:47 is through three planes of movement that we call pitch,

1:05:50 which is like nodding.

1:05:51 So if I nod like this, that's pitch.

1:05:54 Then there's yaw, which is side to side,

1:05:57 which is like shaking my head no.

1:05:59 And then there's roll from side to side

1:06:01 like when a puppy looks at you, like mm-mmm,

1:06:04 that kind of thing.

1:06:05 So pitch, yaw, and roll.

1:06:08 And the pilots out there

1:06:09 will know exactly what I'm talking about.

1:06:12 The brain knows the orientation and position of your body

1:06:16 relative to gravity,

1:06:18 depending on whether or not your brain in your head

1:06:21 actually is engaging more in pitch, yaw, or roll,

1:06:25 or some combination because if I lean down like so

1:06:28 or like so, it's a combination of pitch, yaw, and roll.

1:06:31 You might say like, "What is going on here?"

1:06:33 Well, we have these little things in our inner ear

1:06:35 called the semicircular canals.

1:06:37 Just like our eyes have two main functions,

1:06:39 one is to see objects in space

1:06:41 and the other is to set our circadian clocks

1:06:43 through subconscious mechanisms,

1:06:45 our ears have two main roles.

1:06:48 One is to hear, to perceive sound waves

1:06:51 or take in sound waves for perception, so-called hearing,

1:06:54 and the other is balance or vestibular function.

1:06:56 So sitting in our ears are these semicircular canals,

1:06:59 and they're these little tubes where these little stones,

1:07:02 they're actually little bits of calcium,

1:07:03 roll back and forth like little marbles.

1:07:05 When we roll this way, they roll this way, when we pitch.

1:07:08 When we go from side to side,

1:07:09 there's some that sit flat like this

1:07:10 and they go [makes swishing sound]

1:07:12 like marbles inside of a hula hoop.

1:07:14 And then we have roll, there's some that are kind of

1:07:15 at 45 degrees to those and it's kind of pitchy on roll.

1:07:19 Okay, great.

1:07:20 That sends signals to the rest of our brain and body

1:07:23 that tell us how to compensate

1:07:25 for shifts relative to gravity.

1:07:27 And you say, "Okay,

1:07:28 I thought we were talking about plasticity."

1:07:29 But this is where it gets really, really cool.

1:07:33 Errors in vestibular motor sensory experience,

1:07:38 meaning when we are off-balance

1:07:40 and we have to compensate by looking at, thinking about,

1:07:44 or responding to the world differently

1:07:47 cause an area of our brain called the cerebellum,

1:07:50 it actually means mini brain,

1:07:51 it looks like a little mini brain

1:07:53 like tucked below our cortex in the back,

1:07:56 cause the cerebellum to signal

1:07:58 some of these deeper brain centers

1:08:00 that release dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine.

1:08:03 And that's because these circuits

1:08:07 in the inner ear, et cetera,

1:08:10 and the cerebellum,

1:08:12 they were designed to recalibrate our motor movements

1:08:16 when our relationship to gravity changes.

1:08:19 Something fundamental to survival.

1:08:21 We can't afford to be falling down all the time

1:08:22 or missing things that we grab for,

1:08:25 or running in the wrong direction

1:08:28 when something is pursuing us.

1:08:29 These are hardwired circuits that tap

1:08:31 right into these chemical pathways.

1:08:34 And those chemical pathways are the gates to plasticity.

1:08:38 So I really want to spell this out clearly

1:08:40 'cause I've given a lot of information today.

1:08:43 The first thing is,

1:08:44 how are you arriving to the learning about?

1:08:47 You need to make sure your level

1:08:48 of autonomic arousal is correct.

1:08:51 The ideal state is going to be clear, calm, and focused,

1:08:54 maybe a little bit more on the arousal level,

1:08:56 like heightened arousal.

1:08:58 So understand limbic friction,

1:09:00 understand that you can be too tired,

1:09:01 in which case you're going to need to get yourself more alert,

1:09:03 or you can be too alert

1:09:06 and you're going to need to get yourself calmer.

1:09:09 That gets you to the starting line.

1:09:11 When you're at the starting line,

1:09:12 then you're going to go into a learning about,

1:09:13 and that's when you want to start making these errors.

1:09:16 But what I'm saying is there's a layer in between

1:09:20 where if you are interested in using motor patterns

1:09:24 as a way to open up plasticity for all kinds of learning,

1:09:27 not just motor learning,

1:09:29 disrupting your vestibular motor relationship,

1:09:35 and I'll tell you how to do that in a moment,

1:09:37 can deploy or release neurochemicals in the brain

1:09:41 that place you into a state

1:09:43 that makes you much better at learning

1:09:47 and makes making errors much more pleasureful,

1:09:50 you're much more willing to do that.

1:09:52 Now, some of you are probably saying,

1:09:53 "Flow state, flow state."

1:09:54 Okay, I have friends that work on flow states

1:09:57 and who are involved in

1:09:58 flow states and trying to figure out what they are.

1:10:00 I have great respect for those people.

1:10:02 I want to tip my hat to them.

1:10:05 Very important work.

1:10:07 But, again, flow is an expression

1:10:09 of what you already know how to do.

1:10:10 It's not how you learn,

1:10:13 it's how you express what you've already learned.

1:10:15 I want to be really clear about that.

1:10:17 It's been kind of presented as this super state

1:10:20 or highly desirable state that we can all reach for.

1:10:24 That's the wrong [indistinct] to reach for

1:10:26 until you already know how to do the things

1:10:27 that I'm describing, in my opinion.

1:10:30 So the vestibular system,

1:10:33 if you can engage the vestibular system

1:10:35 and create some errors within the vestibular motor

1:10:38 operations that you're carrying out,

1:10:39 you create a neurochemical state that then makes you

1:10:42 very, very good at learning very quickly regardless of age.

1:10:46 So what would this look like?

1:10:48 Does this mean just doing inversions?

1:10:49 Does this mean doing yoga?

1:10:52 Maybe.

1:10:52 Does this mean taking corners faster on your road bike?

1:10:58 Let's say you always swim freestyle or breaststroke,

1:11:00 does this mean swimming backstroke or butterfly?

1:11:06 It depends.

1:11:07 It depends, however, on a very,

1:11:09 very easy to understand parameter, which is

1:11:12 how regularly you perform a particular motor behavior

1:11:16 and how novel a behavior is.

1:11:18 So the more novel that a behavior is

1:11:21 in terms of your relationship to gravity,

1:11:23 the more it will open up the opportunity for plasticity.

1:11:27 Have you ever seen somebody who just

1:11:29 jumped out of a plane for the first time

1:11:31 with a parachute? [laughs]

1:11:33 I don't even want to think about what,

1:11:35 if you've just seen somebody who jumped out of a plane

1:11:36 for the first time without a parachute,

1:11:38 I just hope the plane was on the ground.

1:11:40 But if you seen somebody after that,

1:11:42 they are in this incredible state because their

1:11:44 body and brain are flooded with all these neurochemicals

1:11:47 because it's very novel to them.

1:11:49 However, I've got friends from communities that

1:11:52 have done thousands upon thousands,

1:11:53 maybe tens of thousands of jumps,

1:11:55 and they're always alert and aware,

1:11:57 but it becomes pretty regular for them.

1:11:59 That's the point.

1:12:00 And they're not in this kind of buzzed out,

1:12:02 excited state afterwards because it's routine for them.

1:12:06 The key is to bring novelty

1:12:08 to the vestibular motor experience,

1:12:11 the vestibular motor commands that you're performing.

1:12:16 How do you do that?

1:12:16 Well, it's all about your orientation relative to gravity.

1:12:20 Now, I wouldn't want anyone to place themselves at risk.

1:12:22 So if you can't do handstands, don't try and do them,

1:12:26 freestanding and whatever.

1:12:27 If you're good at handstands,

1:12:29 guess how much plasticity doing handstands for half an hour

1:12:32 is going to create for you.

1:12:33 Zero.

1:12:35 Zero.

1:12:36 Your body is fully comfortable walking on your hands.

1:12:38 I see these people walking on your hands,

1:12:40 being upside down, being inverted.

1:12:42 Your Cirque du Soleil performers,

1:12:43 they're very comfortable there,

1:12:44 and there is zero learning, zero plasticity

1:12:47 because the failures and errors

1:12:49 and the relationship to gravity

1:12:51 are very typical for that individual.

1:12:54 Now, what this means is

1:12:56 that if we're going to use motor practices

1:12:58 to open up plasticity for learning,

1:13:00 not just those practices, but maybe some cognitive skills

1:13:04 or other things in the period that follows,

1:13:06 we need to create a sense of novelty relative to gravity.

1:13:09 And that means being either in a new position

1:13:13 or slightly unstable.

1:13:15 Believe it or not,

1:13:17 I don't want anyone injuring themselves,

1:13:18 but the sensation of falling or close to falling

1:13:22 signals the cerebellum to signal the deep brain centers

1:13:24 that release these neurochemicals

1:13:26 that something is very different

1:13:27 and we need to correct this error very, very fast.

1:13:31 Now, earlier, I was talking about

1:13:32 high contingencies for learning,

1:13:34 and you definitely don't want to make it a kind of like

1:13:37 either survive this or die kind of experience.

1:13:41 I confess, I occasionally look at these

1:13:43 parkour videos on YouTube.

1:13:45 Believe it or not, a lot of those people have died,

1:13:48 the ones that do these ridiculous things

1:13:50 of hanging off of buildings and things.

1:13:52 I am not suggesting you do that.

1:13:53 Please don't do that.

1:13:54 What I'm talking about is finding safe ways to explore

1:13:58 the sensory motor vestibular space, as we call it,

1:14:01 the relationship between those things.

1:14:03 So that could be through yoga.

1:14:04 If you're terrible at yoga,

1:14:05 there's more opportunity for you to learn

1:14:07 than somebody who's very skilled at yoga, for instance,

1:14:09 or gymnastics, or handstands, or on your road bike.

1:14:12 This is, unfortunately, what,

1:14:14 I don't want to name brands, but stationary bikes

1:14:16 where they give you the visual experience

1:14:17 of moving through space,

1:14:18 but you're not actually moving through physical space,

1:14:20 there's no vestibular feedback.

1:14:23 It's all visual.

1:14:25 You're stationary on the bike.

1:14:27 So unless you're hanging off the bike in your living room

1:14:29 like almost to the point you're tipping the bike,

1:14:32 you're not getting the actual vestibular

1:14:34 motor sensory mismatch.

1:14:36 That mismatch is the signal that deploys

1:14:38 dopamine, epinephrin, and these other things.

1:14:40 I don't care how excited or how much fun the ride was

1:14:42 or how much music you're playing that you love,

1:14:45 it's not the same situation

1:14:47 as being out of your normal relationship

1:14:53 to the gravitational pull.

1:14:55 So the first gate is to arrive at learning

1:14:57 at the appropriate level of autonomic arousal.

1:15:00 Clear and focused is best,

1:15:02 but don't obsess over being right there, it's okay.

1:15:05 If you're a little anxious or a little bit tired,

1:15:07 then you want to make errors.

1:15:09 We talked about that,

1:15:10 and this vestibular motor sensory relationship

1:15:13 is absolutely key

1:15:15 if you want to get heightened or accelerated plasticity.

1:15:18 And we talked about another feature,

1:15:21 which is setting a contingency.

1:15:23 If there's a reason,

1:15:24 an important reason for you to actually learn,

1:15:27 even if you're making failures,

1:15:28 the learning will be accelerated.

1:15:30 So there's really four things that you really need to do

1:15:33 for plasticity as an adult.

1:15:36 And I would say that these also apply to young people.

1:15:39 And there's an interesting

1:15:42 kind of a thought experiment there as well,

1:15:44 which is if you look at children,

1:15:46 they are moving a lot in different dimensions.

1:15:49 They are sometimes hanging from trees.

1:15:55 My sports were always things where I tended to get

1:15:57 hurt a lot, fall a lot.

1:15:58 So it's skateboarding for me when I was younger,

1:16:00 so a lot of falling and rolling

1:16:01 and various things of that sort.

1:16:05 But whatever sport the kids are playing,

1:16:06 or even if they don't play a sport,

1:16:08 they tend to move in a lot of different

1:16:11 relationships to gravity,

1:16:12 more dimensionality to their movements I should say,

1:16:15 than adults.

1:16:16 And one of the questions that's always

1:16:18 kind of been in the back of my mind is,

1:16:20 as we age we get less good at engaging in neuroplasticity.

1:16:23 Part of that is because

1:16:25 as the brain ages there are certain changes to

1:16:28 the way that neurons are structured,

1:16:29 their molecular components, et cetera.

1:16:31 But it's kind of a self-amplifying,

1:16:35 or I should say self-degenerating cycle

1:16:42 where as we get older, we tend to get more linear

1:16:46 and more regular about specific kinds of movements.

1:16:49 So we'd get on the treadmill, or we take the walk,

1:16:51 or we just always go up the same stairs, et cetera.

1:16:53 And there's less opportunity, typically,

1:16:56 for engaging these relationships to the gravitational pull

1:17:00 through the vestibular motor sensory convergence

1:17:03 that we talked about a moment ago.

1:17:05 And so you sort of have to wonder whether or not

1:17:07 the lack of plasticity or the reduced plasticity

1:17:10 in older individuals, which includes me,

1:17:14 would reflect the fact that

1:17:16 those chemicals aren't being deployed because

1:17:19 we're not engaging in certain behaviors

1:17:21 as opposed to we can't engage in the behaviors

1:17:24 because the chemicals aren't being deployed.

1:17:26 Now, I have a feeling it's both.

1:17:27 These have a reciprocal relationship.

1:17:29 And I certainly, again, I don't think

1:17:32 it would be wise for anyone who doesn't have

1:17:34 the muscle stabilizing skills

1:17:36 or the bone density, et cetera,

1:17:38 to start doing inversions and things of that sort.

1:17:41 That's not what I'm talking about here.

1:17:43 But it's interesting to think about

1:17:44 the sorts of exercise that we engage in.

1:17:46 We all know that getting the heart rate elevated

1:17:48 three to five times a week

1:17:50 is really good for us for cardiovascular health.

1:17:52 I think there's a ton of data to support that now.

1:17:54 Some load-bearing exercise is important

1:17:57 for increasing bone density

1:17:58 and maintaining muscular strength

1:17:59 and proprioceptive feedback.

1:18:02 Because, I'm sure many of you know this,

1:18:04 but resistance exercise actually trains

1:18:07 the nerve to muscle connections

1:18:09 as much as it does the muscles themselves.

1:18:11 Something I talked about at the beginning of the episode.

1:18:14 But I think most of us could stand to increase

1:18:18 the degree to which we engage this vestibular system

1:18:21 in novel ways.

1:18:22 And that can be done quite safely

1:18:24 through a number of different mechanisms.

1:18:27 I'm not a surfer, but people who do that sort of thing

1:18:29 are very familiar with orienting their body differently

1:18:32 according to the gravitational pull.

1:18:34 They're lying down, then they're standing up,

1:18:36 then they're turning, they're leaning their head.

1:18:37 So, again, it's this pitch, yaw, roll thing.

1:18:40 And, again, if you're very skilled at surfing,

1:18:42 you're actually not going to

1:18:43 open up plasticity just by surfing.

1:18:45 It's in the learning of these new relationships to gravity

1:18:49 that the windows for plasticity are enhanced.

1:18:54 I want to make sure that I underscore the fact

1:18:56 that this vestibular thing that I've been describing

1:18:59 is a way to really accentuate plasticity.

1:19:02 It's tapping into an inborn biological mechanism

1:19:06 where the cerebellum has outputs to these deep brain nuclei

1:19:09 associated with dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine.

1:19:13 You don't want to endanger yourself in the course of

1:19:15 pursuing these activities, but it is a powerful mechanism.

1:19:20 That's kind of an amplifier on plasticity,

1:19:23 as is high contingency.

1:19:24 If you really need to learn conversational French

1:19:26 to save your relationship,

1:19:28 the chances are you're going to learn it.

1:19:29 There are limits, of course, to the extent

1:19:31 to which one can accentuate or accelerate plasticity.

1:19:35 The ceiling on this is not infinite,

1:19:37 although we don't know how high it goes.

1:19:40 I think it's reasonable to say that

1:19:41 if someone put a gun to my head and said,

1:19:42 "Learn conversational French in the next 120 seconds,"

1:19:46 that conversational French will be limited

1:19:47 probably to just one word,

1:19:49 probably the word oui or something like that.

1:19:51 Because I can't stuff in all the knowledge all at once.

1:19:55 I think that's the dream of brain-machine interface,

1:19:57 that one will be able to download a chip

1:19:59 into their hippocampus or cortex,

1:20:01 or some other brain structure that would allow them

1:20:03 to download conversational French.

1:20:06 And someday we may get to that,

1:20:09 that capability may come about.

1:20:11 Right now, it does not exist,

1:20:13 nor is there a specific pill or chemical that will allow you

1:20:17 to download more information more quickly.

1:20:20 This is the issue around nootropics

1:20:23 I've talked about before.

1:20:24 There are things that can increase focus,

1:20:26 mainly things that increase acetylcholine

1:20:28 and transmission through the nicotine system,

1:20:31 things that can increase dopamine, things like L-tyrosine.

1:20:34 Again, I'm not recommending these.

1:20:35 You need to heed the warnings on those bottles,

1:20:37 but they will increase these neurochemicals.

1:20:39 And there are, of course,

1:20:41 things that will increase epinephrin,

1:20:42 things like caffeine,

1:20:43 or some people, because of prescription, take Adderall.

1:20:47 I'm, again, not suggesting people take any of these things.

1:20:49 In fact, today I focused almost exclusively

1:20:53 on behavioral tools and ways of structuring learning bouts

1:20:58 that will allow you to access more plasticity

1:21:00 regardless of age.

1:21:01 And they center around things that

1:21:03 I'm sure if you look around you you'll see

1:21:06 evidence for, "Oh, incremental learning is powerful,"

1:21:09 or, "Oh, the vestibular system

1:21:12 can open up opportunities for plasticity."

1:21:14 I'm sure that the yogis out there all saying,

1:21:15 "Wait, this sounds exactly like yoga.

1:21:18 We're supposed to push to an edge

1:21:20 and do these inversions and do all those sorts of things."

1:21:23 Well, I want to be clear,

1:21:23 I never said anyone should do inversions.

1:21:25 I said that the vestibular system is a valuable portal

1:21:29 into some of these neurochemical states

1:21:30 that favor plasticity.

1:21:32 But not so seldom, I hear from the yoga community,

1:21:36 and they will say things like,

1:21:37 "Much of what you're saying about how the brain works

1:21:39 or neuroplasticity has already been described

1:21:42 or is embedded in yoga practices."

1:21:44 And I just want to be very clear,

1:21:45 I have tremendous respect for

1:21:47 the yoga community and the practices,

1:21:49 I've done yoga from time to time,

1:21:51 I find it challenging and valuable.

1:21:52 I'm not a regular practitioner.

1:21:54 But the problem with yoga

1:21:58 is exactly the same problem with science,

1:22:00 which is that yoga has a lot of practices

1:22:05 for which there are very specific names,

1:22:08 but no description

1:22:10 or lending of understanding about mechanism.

1:22:13 And science has a lot of mechanisms [laughs]

1:22:15 and a lot of publications and papers

1:22:17 for which there's very little,

1:22:19 if not no description of tools and practices.

1:22:23 My goal in not just today

1:22:26 but in many ways throughout the course of the podcast

1:22:28 is to bridge the gaps between these various disciplines

1:22:32 in ways that are grounded mainly

1:22:34 to the fields of neuroscience and some related fields.

1:22:37 So, yes, it's true that I look at things

1:22:40 mainly through the lens of science,

1:22:41 but that's not to say that it exhaustively explains

1:22:45 everything about anything,

1:22:47 nor is it to say that it's the only lens

1:22:49 through which one could look at

1:22:50 something like neuroplasticity.

1:22:52 So I just want to acknowledge that

1:22:53 I have great respect for all these

1:22:55 different practices and communities.

1:22:56 And I think that, indeed, there are many cases in which

1:23:00 different communities and practices have been

1:23:03 aimed at targeting the same goals or outcomes.

1:23:07 Science and neuroscience,

1:23:09 through an understanding of mechanism,

1:23:11 can allow all of us to gain kind of common understanding

1:23:15 about what those practices are

1:23:16 and how to access things like neuroplasticity,

1:23:19 sleep, et cetera.

1:23:20 And I do believe. as I've said previously on this podcast,

1:23:24 that understanding mechanism

1:23:26 affords us a certain flexibility.

1:23:28 And I don't mean physical flexibility.

1:23:30 I mean a flexibility when we can't engage

1:23:33 in a particular behavior,

1:23:34 maybe we were injured or maybe we're not in the right

1:23:36 situation to do a particular practice,

1:23:38 but by thinking about mechanism,

1:23:40 we can adapt our circumstances.

1:23:43 I talked about this with sleep.

1:23:44 If you're rigidly attached to one protocol

1:23:47 of always looking at sunlight at one particular time

1:23:49 in the morning and in the evening,

1:23:51 that is not as valuable as understanding the mechanisms

1:23:54 of why you might look at

1:23:55 sunlight at one particular time versus another

1:23:57 because that affords you a flexibility,

1:23:59 allows you to adapt.

1:24:00 And life is very dynamic and we don't have control over

1:24:04 all the external conditions all the time.

1:24:06 And so understanding mechanism

1:24:08 through the lens of neuroscience,

1:24:09 I do believe, can be very powerful

1:24:11 because, of course, there are multiple ways

1:24:13 to access dopamine,

1:24:14 there are multiple ways to adjust limbic friction.

1:24:17 It's not just through respiration.

1:24:19 Of course, there are many ways to do that.

1:24:21 And so my overall goal here in this episode

1:24:25 and with this podcast

1:24:26 is to give you some understanding of the mechanisms

1:24:29 and the insights into the underlying biology

1:24:32 that allow you to tailor

1:24:33 what these kind of foundational mechanisms are

1:24:38 to suit your particular learning needs.

1:24:40 So I really thank you for your time and attention today.

1:24:44 I've covered a lot of material.

1:24:45 I very much encourage questions in the comments section

1:24:49 if you're looking at this on YouTube.

1:24:50 And if you're not and you're listening to it,

1:24:52 on Apple or Spotify.

1:24:54 Please feel free to visit us over on the YouTube channel

1:24:57 and put your questions in the comments section.

1:24:59 I do read them.

1:25:00 This entire month is all about neuroplasticity.

1:25:02 There's a lot to cover,

1:25:04 but I'm very excited to delve deeper into this topic

1:25:06 as it relates to your particular interests.

1:25:09 Many of you have graciously asked

1:25:10 how you can help support the podcast.

1:25:12 The best way you can do that

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1:25:45 And, of course, check out our sponsors

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1:25:48 That's a terrific way to support us as well.

1:25:51 Several times throughout today's episode,

1:25:53 as well as on previous episodes of the podcast,

1:25:55 I've talked about various supplements

1:25:57 that can be useful for enhancing sleep,

1:26:00 enhancing neuroplasticity, et cetera.

1:26:03 And, again, I want to emphasize that

1:26:05 I always think that behavioral practices

1:26:07 are the place to start.

1:26:08 I don't think supplements should ever be

1:26:10 the first line of entry

1:26:11 for people looking to enhance these aspects

1:26:14 of their nervous system and life.

1:26:15 But for those of you that are interested in supplements

1:26:17 and the supplements that I take,

1:26:19 I'm pleased to announce that we partnered with Thorne,

1:26:21 T-H-O-R-N-E.

1:26:23 And Thorne makes supplements that are, in my opinion,

1:26:27 of the very highest stringency in terms of

1:26:29 what's listed on the bottle

1:26:31 is actually what you'll find in the bottle,

1:26:32 this is a serious issue for the supplement industry,

1:26:35 as well as just the overall quality

1:26:37 of the materials they put into their supplements.

1:26:40 If you'd like to take a look at the supplements that I take

1:26:42 as well as explore any of them for yourself,

1:26:45 you can go to thorne.com/u/huberman.

1:26:50 And if you look there, you'll see

1:26:51 a number of the different supplements that I take.

1:26:53 And if you decide to purchase any of them,

1:26:55 you'll get 20% off your order.

1:26:57 So that's Thorne, thorne.com/u/huberman

1:27:02 to see the supplements that I take

1:27:03 and to explore if any of them are right for you.

1:27:07 In the next episode of this podcast,

1:27:09 we're going to continue to explore neuroplasticity.

1:27:12 This, as you may recall, is the way that we go about things

1:27:15 here the Huberman Lab Podcast,

1:27:16 which is to really drill deeply

1:27:18 into a topic for three or four, or even five episodes

1:27:21 so that by the end of those episodes,

1:27:24 all of you have a very firm understanding of how to

1:27:26 apply the principles of neurobiology

1:27:28 to the specific practices

1:27:30 and endeavors that are most important to you.

1:27:33 So I very much thank you for your time and attention.

1:27:36 I know it's a lot of information

1:27:38 and it takes a bit of focus and attention,

1:27:40 and certainly will trigger plasticity

1:27:43 to learn all this information.

1:27:45 I want to encourage you and just remind you

1:27:47 that you don't have to grasp it all at once,

1:27:49 that it is here archived

1:27:51 and that if you want to return to the information,

1:27:53 it will still be here.

1:27:54 And that I, most of all,

1:27:57 really appreciate your interest in science.

1:27:59 Thank you so much.