How to Train Your Brain to Enjoy Hard Work | Andrew Huberman transcript

But I think we need to get comfortable as a culture in trying to understand our species and how we work that the early stages of hard work and focus are going to feel like agitation, stress, and confusion because that's the [music] norepinephrine and adrenaline system kicking in. I realized this is it. You know, it's now or never. It really was one of those moments. You know, you hear about those moments, but it was me realizing I'm I'm living in this squat where I've got a pet ferret.

My girlfriend's gone. She broke up with me. She was smart enough to break up with me. I'm getting in fights. [music] I'm working at a bagel shop. I'm barely making ends meet. And at that point, I just made the decision. I just said, "Okay, look, I'm I'm not going to be a professional athlete. I think I'm pretty good at memorizing things. I think I have an interest in people." I just decided to do school. That was the track.

So, like some people pick the military because it's a like if you you know what to expect at least in terms of, you know, the passages that you're going to go through. And for me, that was school. And so I had decided to get back in school. I moved into a studio apartment by myself. I quit partying completely. I didn't go to parties. I got really serious about fitness. So I just started running and lifting weights and I studied. >> But you constructed that kind of structure for yourself. >> Yeah.

I think I was really afraid. And at that point fear was the best motivator for me. I just basically worked like crazy. And it's interesting because I didn't have a mentor or someone to bring me to that. But once I started doing that, you know, there was one professor in particular who kind of took note. He was like, "Oh, you know, you seemed really interested in this stuff." And I was like, "Yeah, because he was teaching me about depression, schizophrenia, neurochemicals." I thought I was totally turned on by the world of neuroscience.

[music] This one guy, Harry Carlile, he was teaching me about thermal regulation and how the brain works and how receptors in the skin relate to perceptions in the mind. And he also had a deep sensitivity to mental disease. you know, he gave me an opportunity to work in his lab and at some point he told me, "If you go to graduate school, they'll actually pay you to do science." And what ended up happening at that point was I I hit a brick wall because I was I had a lot of resentment toward my dad. >> I felt here's my dad.

He was a scientist. He had, you know, left us all this kind of thing. And I realized if I didn't do this, if I didn't take this opportunity, I it was going to be the most foolish thing ever. What am I going to do? Despite my parents be 20 years old at that point. So I just made the decision I'm going to be get a PhD. I'm going become a professor. I'm going to [music] get tenure. I'm going to be like this guy, you know, this guy who was looked like he had a pretty good life to me.

And so that's pretty much how I spent the, you know, the last 25 years of my life is doing experiments. >> It worked out. >> Well, as a neuroscientist, I mean, you're your own patient. I mean, the fact that you were able to turn your life around in such a dramatic fashion and do it essentially through sheer will and being available when those mentors showed up from the the early therapist. Sounds like that guy almost saved your life. >> He absolutely saved my life.

He gave me the book um wherever you go there you are, the Jung Kabat Zin book and [music] he said >> no pressure but if you can develop a mindfulness practice where you can sit still for like 10 minutes a day >> it'll serve you very well. So I started doing that like could have told me. He could have told me to hang out of a window by my ankles. Like what could I do each day from waking up to going to sleep [music] >> that would serve my mental health and my productivity well?

Yeah. I owe him a tremendous amount and especially because he wasn't just in the psychoanalytic theory. He also was like cognitive behavioral, he understood the power of practices, not just discussing issues. It's absolutely clear that the nervous system can change in response to experience. [music] So this thing we call neuroplasticity is really that it's the brain's ability to modify itself in response to experience.

So the brain loves to be able to just do things, pick up coffee cups and drink and walk and talk and do things and not put much energy into it. >> When we decide to focus, what the brain really does is it switches on a set of circuits. And it's trying to understand duration, how long something's going to last, path, what's going to happen, and outcome, what ultimately is going to happen. So duration, path, and outcome.

And so the brain can change in adulthood and it can change provided that there's an emphasis on some perceptual event. So in other words, if [music] you want to change your brain as an adult, let's say you want to be less anxious, you want to learn a new language, you want to be more functional in some way, presumably the key thing is to bring focus [music] to some particular perception of something that's happening during the learning process.

And the reason for that is that there's a neurochemical system involving acetylcholine. [music] And it comes from these two little nuclei down in the base of the brain called nucleus basalis. All day long you're doing things in a reflexive way. But when you do something and you think about it very intensely, acetyloline is released from basalis at the precise neurons that were involved in that behavior and it marks those for change during sleep or during deep rest [music] later.

So for people that want to change their brain, the power of focus is really the entry point and the ability to access deep rest and sleep. >> Because most people don't realize this, but neuroplasticity is triggered by intense focus, [music] >> but neuroplasticity occurs during deep sleep and rest. And we can talk about how to optimize those different brain functions, >> right? I mean, this idea of flow is so much in the vernacular now.

And my sense is that people are trying to measure their level of engagement against some sort of theoretical idea of what it's like to be in that flow state. And if they're not experiencing it, they feel like they're doing it wrong or they're they feel guilty or they beat themselves up. [music] And for me, it's a lot of it is just hard work. Like right now, I'm trying to finish this book and I should have been working on this book for like the last nine months, right? and I just couldn't get it together.

And then about 10 days ago, we had a meeting and we established this deadline at, you know, July 10th to turn this thing in. And it was like a switch got flicked and I went all in and it's all I can think about now. And and in fact, everything else feels like um extraneous and a distraction. I just want to get back so I can focus on this thing. And 10 days ago, I couldn't get myself into that position. And it's made me think about what is going on in my brain that it's such a drastic state change and what did I do to switch that while a deadline was imposed upon me and whatever happened neurochemically with that set in motion like a chain reaction of events that got me into the chair and once I began the project for me it's all about like momentum right it's it's like this start getting to the starting line and beginning is so hard like I will just go forever without doing it.

And then I'm in and then I'm all in 110%. And I'm like, why can't I just why can't I be that person who just worked on it, you know, an hour and a half every day for the last 3 months. None of us would expect to walk into the gym and do our PR lift or performer go do something without warming up. The brain also needs to warm up and start to hone in which circuits are going to be active. >> And it's it's unreasonable for us to think, oh, I've got an hour. or I'm going to plop down and write beautifully for an hour or my best work.

We need to accept that there's a period of agitation and stress that accompanies the dropping into these highly concentrated states. [music] >> And it's incredible because if you think about sensation, perception, feeling, thought, and behavior, actually the way to control our nervous system and feel the way we want to feel is to run that backwards. Behavior, thoughts. So if you change your behavior, then generally your thoughts, your feelings, and your perceptions change. >> Yeah. and everyone tries to come at it from the other end.

And I really think that if neuroscience has anything to offer, >> it's some understanding of what the underlying chemicals and neural circuits are. The human species can start to understand that our our feelings and our thoughts and our memories and all that is very complicated, but that when behaviors are very concrete and they are the the control panel for the rest [music] of it. I don't want to relegate feelings, feelings are extremely important.

I don't want to relegate perception. They're extremely important. >> Like it's easy to say like just move. You got to take the action. But a lot of people still despite understanding that, intellectualizing that are unable to, you know, basically act as if. >> Yeah. I think we're dealing with two general categories of people who have problems with motivation and focus. And we think, well, I need to calm myself enough to move forward.

And then other people say, "Well, no, you need to kind of ramp yourself up to move forward." Here's what the way [music] I conceptualize it based on the data that I'm aware of. Some people are just hypoaroused. They're just not motivated enough. Some people are so agitated, the monkey mind, they got too many things going on and they're thinking, "Okay, they're trying to sit down and write. I suffer from this and I'm feeling like, wait, I've also got this person I need to connect with and I'm kind of being drawn off course by not being able to put the blinders on." For people that have that issue, I think learning how to calm the nervous system is very powerful.

A lot of people talk about dopamine as this thing that you get when you publish the book or when you get the book deal or when something wonderful happens like your child's born. And that's true, but dopamine's main role is to be released anytime you achieve a milestone or you think you're on the right path. And when the dopamine system is tethered to a particular pattern of focus, remember duration, path, and outcome.

So it's like, okay, you sit down, maybe you don't get much text out, but then the next day you get 800 words of really solid text and you feel good like I'm I'm into this because so my colleague Carol Dwek, who you know popularized this theme, growth mindset, >> it's again a very misunderstood concept. It's the idea that we can change. So that's built into that. >> But the discovery of growth mindset was of these kids that actually really enjoyed doing problem sets that they knew they couldn't get right.

But for them, they would get this like dopamine release from just focusing on the problem. They like doing puzzles they couldn't get right. It sounds crazy, but inevitably those kids are very good at puzzles and very good at math and these kinds of things. I believe sort of a neuro neuroscience lens on growth mindset would be that the agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning of something and when you're trying to lean into it and you can't focus is just a recognized gate.

You have to pass that through that gate to get to the focus component. And [music] then if you can reward the effort process, you really start to feel joy and low levels of of excitement in the effort process. That's that buffering of adrenaline. That's that feeling like, yes, I've got a lot of adrenaline in my system, but I'm on the right path. >> It feels good to [clears throat and music] walk up this hill, so to speak.

And I think the misunderstanding around how these circuits work has led to this idea that there's some secret entry point maybe marked flow on the door and there's a trampoline up to that door and you just open that door and you're going to be in it, right? >> And nothing could be further from the truth. And anyone who's done well in any career or athletic pursuit knows this, but unfortunately there's a kind of obsession with the idea that it's all supposed to feel good.

And it does feel good, but there's a whole staircase in which it feels [music] kind of lousy. >> Yeah. I mean, the feel-good aspect of that experience is very subtle. And I think in a kind of global way, what you're talking about is falling in love with the process. Like you have to push this gate open, which might require more effort than you're comfortable with. But once you push through, it is about, you know, that daily the daily rigor and the tiny wins that you get from that. um rather than you know it's easy to you know you set a goal but that goal becomes very abstract right and it's those tiny little things that you're getting done every day that bring you that internal satisfaction that are like calibrating that plasticity is that what you're saying >> yeah absolutely Carol Dwek has talked about this that positive selft talk is not the same thing as growth mindset because positive selft talk is almost always linked to the [music] ultimate outcome if I'm losing badly in something and I tell myself I'm doing great I know that I'm lying. >> But the idea that you can self-reward the effort process is extremely powerful because what it means is that if you can recognize agitation, stress, and confusion as an entry point to where you eventually want to go.

I do think that just that even just mental recognition can allow people to pass through it more easily. >> Well, the why has to be deeper than that. I mean, the thing that that I kind of always default to when I hit that breaking point or, you know, I'm training or I'm racing or whatever and I'm at that stage where it's just like I can't go any further. The first thing I do is I reflect inward on why I'm doing this to begin with.

Like what is the, you know, what is the value system that that I'm trying to tap into? What is it that I'm trying to express? Like what got me to this point? So, it's a reminder. And then I just set like I just say, "Well, I'm just going to get to the next lampost or I'm gonna, you know, get to the the next intersection or whatever it is." I break it down into the tiny I'll quit after that. Like the more I can just root myself in the present moment and and distill it down into the tiniest of digestible chunks, uh, that's the only way I can continue to move forward.

And I've learned over time that the more I do that then, you know, suddenly I'll find myself in a different mental like it will shift, right? Just because I feel that way in that moment is not determinative of how I'm going to feel 10 minutes later. And so to put this simply, one of the most powerful things that any person can do is to learn to control this idea of duration, path, and outcome and attach an internal sense of reward.

Just that you're doing well. to reward yourself mentally. Just say, "I'm doing well. I'm actually on the right path." To do that inside of the demands that come from the external [music] world, the more often that we can self-reward some aspect of the process, provided it's in the right direction of what we're trying to achieve, the more energy we're going to have for that, the more focus we're going to have for that.

So, when I think about how to recover, I' I actually don't think about recovery as its own thing. I think about recovery as giving buoyancy or improving my ability to focus. So sleep is a turning off of these brain circuits that are thinking about what's happening next. panoramic vision between the 2 seconds of what I call deliberate decompression where you just kind of let your mind go broader will allow you to reset your focus much more intensely when you return to to that book as opposed to if you'd looked at your phone or engaged even in some other kind of deep duration path outcome type uh function of the brain.

So when you start thinking about meditation, it's also valuable because a lot of meditation involves focusing on your breath. I actually think a lot of people are are spending out this ability. [music] They're they're >> working too hard in their the activities that are designed to reset them. >> Being just very adamant about my meditation practice. That's right. Because it's a it's a letting go. We're so programmed to like force ourselves to do things or to like dive in with intentionality, but so much of this is more elusive than that.

I mean, I didn't have the power of concentration. I hadn't read all the good books that gun high school students read growing up. I had to learn how to speak properly. I learned how to learn how to think properly and really learn how to commit to something that was very linear and at times was very painful. one. But over time, I got pretty good and now I can do long stints of work without any breaks.