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How to Focus to Change Your Brain | Huberman Lab Essentials — Transcript

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0:00ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,
0:02where we revisit past episodes for the most
0:04potent and actionable science-based tools
0:07for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:09[MUSIC PLAYING]
0:11My name is Andrew Huberman, and I'm
0:13a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
0:15at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:17Today we're talking about neuroplasticity,
0:20which is this incredible feature of our nervous system's that
0:23allows it to change in response to experience.
0:27Neuroplasticity is arguably one of the most important aspects
0:31of our biology.
0:32It holds the promise for each and all of us
0:34to think differently, to learn new things,
0:38to forget painful experiences, and to essentially
0:42adapt to anything that life brings us by becoming better.
0:46So let's get started.
0:47Most people are familiar with the word "neuroplasticity,"
0:51which is the brain and nervous system's ability to change
0:54itself.
0:55All of us were born with a nervous system
0:58that isn't just capable of change
1:00but was designed to change.
1:02When we enter the world, our nervous system
1:07is primed for learning.
1:09The brain and nervous system of a baby is wired very crudely.
1:15The connections are not precise, and we
1:18can see evidence of that in the fact
1:20that babies are kind of flopping there, like a little potato
1:23bug with limbs.
1:24They can't really do much in terms of coordinated movement.
1:27They certainly can't speak, and they can't really
1:30do anything with precision.
1:32So I want you to imagine in your mind
1:35that when you were brought into this world,
1:37you were essentially a widely connected web of connections
1:42that was really poor at doing any one thing,
1:46and that through your experience, what you were
1:48exposed to by your parents or other caretakers,
1:51through your social interactions,
1:53through your thoughts, through the languages that you learned,
1:56through the places you traveled or didn't travel,
1:58your nervous system became customized
2:00to your unique experience.
2:03Now, that's true for certain parts of your brain
2:06that are involved in what we call representations
2:09of the outside world.
2:10A lot of your brain is designed to represent the visual world,
2:13or represent the auditory world, or represent
2:16the gallery of smells that are possible in the world.
2:20However, there are aspects of your nervous system
2:23that were designed not to be plastic.
2:26They were wired so that plasticity or changes
2:29in those circuits is very unlikely.
2:31Those circuits include things like the ones
2:34that control your heartbeat.
2:35The ones that control your breathing.
2:37The ones that control your digestion.
2:39And thank goodness that those circuits were set up
2:41that way, because you want those circuits to be extremely
2:44reliable.
2:45So many nervous system features, like digestion and breathing
2:49and heart rate, are hard to change.
2:52Other aspects of our nervous system
2:54are actually quite easy to change.
2:56And one of the great gifts of childhood, adolescence,
2:58and young adulthood is that we can learn through almost
3:01passive experience.
3:02We don't have to focus that hard in order to learn new things.
3:05And then after age 25, if we want
3:08to change those connections, those superhighways
3:10of connectivity, we have to engage in some very specific
3:13processes.
3:14And those processes, as we'll soon learn,
3:17are gated, meaning you can't just
3:19decide to change your brain.
3:20You actually have to go through a series of steps
3:22to change your internal state in ways that will
3:25allow you to change your brain.
3:27Many of us have been captivated by the stories
3:30in the popular press about the addition of new neurons,
3:33this idea, oh, if you go running or you exercise,
3:36your brain actually makes new neurons.
3:38Well, I'm going to give you the bad news, which
3:40is that after puberty, the human brain and nervous system
3:43adds very few, if any, new neurons.
3:47So even though we can't add new neurons throughout our lifespan,
3:50at least not in very great numbers,
3:53it's clear that we can change our nervous system,
3:56that the nervous system is available for change,
3:59that if we create the right set of circumstances
4:01in our brain, chemical circumstances,
4:04and if we create the right environmental circumstances
4:07around us, our nervous system will
4:09shift into a mode in which change isn't just possible,
4:12but it's probable.
4:14As I mentioned before, the hallmark
4:16of the child nervous system is change.
4:19It wants to change.
4:20One of the ways in which we can all get plasticity
4:23at any stage throughout the lifespan
4:26is through deficits and impairments
4:27in what we call our sensory apparati-- our eyes, our ears,
4:31our nose, our mouth.
4:32In individuals that are blind from birth,
4:35the so-called occipital cortex, the visual cortex in the back,
4:38becomes overtaken by hearing.
4:42The neurons there will start to respond to sounds as well
4:45as Braille touch.
4:46And actually, there is one particularly tragic incident
4:49where a woman who was blind since birth
4:52and, because of neuroimaging studies,
4:55we knew her visual cortex was no longer visual.
4:58It was responsible for Braille reading and for hearing.
5:01She had a stroke that actually took out
5:03most of the function of her visual cortex.
5:05So then she was blind, she couldn't Braille read, or hear.
5:08She did recover some aspect of function.
5:10Now, most people, they don't end up in that highly unfortunate
5:13situation.
5:14And what we know is that, for instance, blind people who
5:18use their visual cortex for Braille reading and for hearing
5:22have much better auditory acuity and touch
5:26acuity, meaning they can sense things with their fingers
5:28and they can sense things with their hearing
5:30that typical sighted folks wouldn't be able to.
5:33In fact, you will find a much greater incidence
5:37of perfect pitch in people that are blind.
5:41And that tells us that the brain and, in particular, this area
5:44we call the neocortex, which is the outer part,
5:47is really designed to be a map of our own individual
5:50experience.
5:51So these, what I call experiments
5:53of impairment or loss, where somebody
5:56is blind from birth or deaf from birth
5:58or maybe has a limb development impairment where they have
6:04a stump instead of an entire limb with a functioning hand,
6:07their brain will represent the body plan that they have, not
6:12some other body plan.
6:14But the beauty of the situation is that the real estate
6:17up in the skull, that neocortex, the essence of it
6:21is to be a customized map of experience.
6:24A few years ago, I was at a course,
6:28and a woman came up to me and she said, you know, I--
6:30I wasn't teaching the course.
6:31I was in the course.
6:32And she said, I just have to tell you
6:34that every time you speak, it really stresses me out.
6:37And I said, well, I've heard that before.
6:39But do you want to be more specific?
6:41And she said, yeah, your tone of voice
6:43reminds me of somebody that I had a really terrible experience
6:46with.
6:46I said, well, OK, well, I can't change my voice,
6:48but I really appreciate that you acknowledge that.
6:51And it also will help explain why
6:53you seem to cringe every time I speak,
6:55which I hadn't noticed until then.
6:57But after that, I did notice she had
6:58a very immediate and kind of visceral response to my speech.
7:01But in any event, over the period of this two-week course,
7:05she would come back every once in a while and say,
7:07you know what?
7:08I think just by telling you that your voice was really difficult
7:11for me to listen to, it's actually
7:13becoming more tolerable to me.
7:14And by the end, we actually became pretty good friends,
7:16and we're still in touch.
7:17And so what this says is that the recognition of something,
7:22whether or not that's an emotional thing or a desire
7:24to learn something else, is actually the first step
7:27in neuroplasticity.
7:28If I get up out of this chair and walk out of the door,
7:31I don't think about each step that I'm taking.
7:32And that's because I learned how to walk during development.
7:35But when we decide that we're going
7:36to shift some sort of behavior or some reaction
7:40or some new piece of information that we want to learn
7:44is something that we want to bring into our consciousness,
7:46that awareness is a remarkable thing
7:49because it cues the brain and the rest of the nervous system
7:53that when we engage in those reflexive actions going forward,
7:57that those reflexive actions are no longer fated to be reflexive.
8:02Now, if this sounds a little bit abstract,
8:03we're going to talk about protocols for how to do this.
8:06But the first step in neuroplasticity
8:08is recognizing that you want to change something.
8:10We have to know what it is exactly that we want to change.
8:14Or if we don't know exactly what it is that we want to change,
8:18we at least have to know that we want to change something
8:20about some specific experience.
8:22Now, there are specific protocols
8:23that science tells us we have to follow if we
8:25want those changes to occur.
8:27What it is, is it's our forebrain,
8:29in particular our prefrontal cortex,
8:31signaling the rest of our nervous system
8:34that something that we're about to do, hear, feel, or experience
8:38is worth paying attention to.
8:40So we'll pause there, and then I'm going to move forward.
8:42One of the biggest lies in the universe that
8:45seems quite prominent right now is that every experience you
8:48have changes your brain.
8:50People love to say this.
8:52They love to say, your brain is going
8:53to be different after this lecture,
8:55or your brain is going to be different after today's class
8:57than it was two days ago.
8:58And that's absolutely not true.
9:01The nervous system doesn't just change
9:03because you experience something unless you're
9:05a very young child.
9:07The nervous system changes when certain neurochemicals
9:11are released and allow whatever neurons
9:14are active in the period in which those chemicals are
9:18swimming around to strengthen or weaken
9:21the connections of those neurons.
9:23So when people tell you, oh, at the end of today's lecture,
9:27at the end of something, your brain
9:28is going to be completely different, that's simply not
9:31true.
9:31If you're older than 25, your brain
9:33will not change unless there's a selective shift
9:37in your attention or a selective shift in your experience
9:41that tells the brain it's time to change.
9:44And those changes occur through strengthening and weakening
9:48of particular connections.
9:49But the important thing to understand
9:51is that if we want something to change,
9:53we really need to bring an immense amount of attention
9:57to whatever it is that we want to change.
9:59This is very much linked to the statement
10:01I made earlier about it all starts with an awareness.
10:04Now, why is that attention important?
10:07In the early '90s, a graduate student by the name of Gregg
10:10Recanzone was in the laboratory of a guy named Mike Merzenich
10:13at UCSF.
10:14And they set out to test this idea
10:17that if one wants to change their brain,
10:20they need to do it early in life because the adult brain simply
10:23isn't plastic.
10:24It's not available for these changes.
10:26And they did a series of absolutely beautiful
10:29experiments, by now, I think we can
10:32say proving that the adult brain can change,
10:36provided certain conditions are met.
10:39Now, the experiments they did are tough.
10:42They were tough on the experimenter,
10:43and they were tough on the subject.
10:45I'll just describe one.
10:46Let's say you were a subject in one of their experiments.
10:49You would come into the lab, and you'd sit down at a table,
10:52and they would record from or image your brain
10:56and look at the representation of your fingers, the digits,
10:59as we call them.
11:00And there would be a spinning drum, literally like a stone
11:04drum in front of you, or metal drum, that had little bumps.
11:07Some of the bumps were spaced close together, some of them
11:10were spaced far apart.
11:11And they would do these experiments
11:13where they would expect their subjects
11:15to press a lever whenever, for instance, the bumps got closer
11:19together or further apart.
11:21And these were very subtle differences.
11:23So in order to do this, you really
11:24have to pay attention to the distance between the bumps.
11:28And these were not Braille readers or anyone
11:30skilled in doing these kinds of experiments.
11:33What they found was that as people
11:35paid more and more attention to the distance
11:37between these bumps--
11:39and they would signal when there was
11:40a change by pressing a lever.
11:42As they did that, there was very rapid changes,
11:45plasticity in the representation of the fingers.
11:48And it could go in either direction.
11:50You could get people very good at detecting
11:52the distance between bumps that the distance was getting smaller
11:55or the distance was getting greater.
11:57So people could get very good at these tasks that
12:00are kind of hard to imagine how they
12:01would translate to the real world for a non-Braille reader.
12:04But what it told us is that these maps of touch
12:07were very much available for plasticity,
12:10and these were fully adult subjects.
12:12What it proved is that the adult brain is very plastic.
12:15And they did some beautiful control experiments
12:17that are important for everyone to understand,
12:19which is that sometimes they would bring people in
12:21and they would have them touch these bumps
12:23on this spinning drum, but they would have the person pay
12:26attention to an auditory cue.
12:28Every time a tone would go off or there
12:30was a shift in the pitch of that tone,
12:32they would have to signal that.
12:33So the subject thought they were doing something
12:35related to touch and hearing.
12:36And all that showed was that it wasn't just
12:39the mere action of touching these bumps;
12:41they had to pay attention to the bumps themselves.
12:44If they were placing their attention on the auditory cue,
12:48on the tone, well, then there was
12:50plasticity in the auditory portion of the brain,
12:52but not on the touch portion of the brain.
12:54And this really spits in the face of this thing
12:58that you hear so often, which is, every experience
13:00that you have is going to change the way your brain works.
13:03Absolutely not.
13:05The experiences that you pay super careful attention to
13:09are what open up plasticity, and it opens up plasticity
13:14to that specific experience.
13:16So the question then is, why?
13:18And Merzenich and his graduate students and postdocs
13:21went on to address this question of why.
13:24And it turns out, the answer is a very straightforward
13:27neurochemical answer.
13:29And the first neurochemical is epinephrine, also adrenaline.
13:33We call it adrenaline when it's released from the adrenal glands
13:36above our kidneys.
13:37That's in the body.
13:38We call it epinephrine in the brain,
13:39but they are chemically identical substances.
13:42Epinephrine is released from a region in the brainstem called
13:45locus ceruleus.
13:47Epinephrine is released when we pay attention
13:49and when we are alert.
13:51But the most important thing for getting plasticity
13:54is that there be epinephrine, which
13:56equates to alertness, plus the release of this neuromodulator
14:00acetylcholine.
14:01Now, acetylcholine is released from two sites in the brain.
14:05One is also in the brainstem, and it's named different things
14:09in different animals.
14:10But in humans, the most rich site of acetylcholine neurons,
14:14or neurons that make acetylcholine,
14:16is the parabigeminal nucleus or the parabrachial region.
14:20All you need to know is that you have an area in your brainstem,
14:23and that area sends wires, these axons, up into the area
14:28of the brain that filters sensory input.
14:31So we have this area of the brain called the thalamus,
14:33and it is getting bombarded with all sorts of sensory input
14:36all the time.
14:37But when I pay attention to something,
14:39I create a cone of attention, and what we call signal to noise
14:42goes up.
14:42So those of you with an engineering background
14:44will be familiar with signal to noise.
14:46Those of you who do not have an engineering background,
14:48don't worry about it.
14:48All it means is that one particular shout in the crowd
14:52comes through.
14:53Acetylcholine acts as a spotlight.
14:56But epinephrine for alertness, acetylcholine spotlighting
15:00these inputs, those two things alone
15:02are not enough to get plasticity.
15:04There needs to be this third component,
15:06and the third component is acetylcholine
15:07released from an area of the forebrain called
15:10nucleus basalis.
15:11If you really want to get technical,
15:13it's called nucleus basalis of Meynert.
15:16For any of you that are budding physicians or going
15:19to medical school, you should know that.
15:21If you have acetylcholine released from the brainstem,
15:24acetylcholine released from nucleus basalis,
15:27and epinephrine, you can change your brain.
15:30And this has been shown again and again and again
15:33in a variety of papers, and it is now
15:36considered a fundamental principle of how
15:38the nervous system works.
15:39If you can access these three things of epinephrine,
15:42acetylcholine from these two sources,
15:44not only will the nervous system change, it has to change.
15:48It absolutely will change.
15:50And that is the most important thing
15:53for people to understand if they want to change their brain.
15:55So now let's talk about how we would translate
15:58all this scientific information into some protocols
16:00that you can actually apply because I think that's what
16:03many of you are interested in.
16:04What you do with your health and your medical care is up to you.
16:06You're responsible for your health and well-being.
16:08So I'm not going to tell you what to do or what to take,
16:11I'm going to describe what the literature tells us and suggests
16:14about ways to access plasticity.
16:16We know we need epinephrine.
16:18That means alertness.
16:19Most people accomplish this through a cup of coffee
16:21and a good night's sleep.
16:23So I will say you should master your sleep schedule,
16:26and you should figure out how much sleep you need in order
16:29to achieve alertness when you sit down to learn.
16:31But once that's in place, the question
16:34then is, how do I access this alertness?
16:37Well, there are a number of ways.
16:39Some people use some pretty elaborate psychological
16:42gymnastics.
16:43They will tell people that they're
16:44going to do something and create some accountability.
16:47That could be really good.
16:48Or they'll post a picture of themselves online,
16:51and they'll commit to learning a certain amount--
16:53losing, excuse me, a certain amount of weight or something
16:55like this.
16:55So they can use either shame-based practices
17:00to potentially embarrass themselves
17:01if they don't follow through.
17:03They'll write checks to organizations
17:04that they hate and insist that they'll
17:06cash them if they don't actually follow through.
17:08Or they'll do it out of love.
17:11They'll decide that they're going to run a marathon
17:14or learn a language or something because of somebody they love,
17:18or they want to devote it to somebody.
17:20The truth is that from the standpoint of epinephrine
17:23and getting alert and activated, it doesn't really matter.
17:26Epinephrine is a chemical, and your brain
17:28does not distinguish between doing things out
17:30of love or hate, anger, or fear.
17:33It really doesn't.
17:34All of those promote autonomic arousal
17:37and the release of epinephrine.
17:38So I think for most people, if you're
17:41feeling not motivated to make these changes, the key thing is
17:44to identify not just one, but probably a kit of reasons,
17:47several reasons as to why you would want
17:49to make this particular change.
17:51And being drawn toward a particular goal
17:54that you're excited about can be one.
17:55Also being motivated to not be completely afraid, ashamed,
18:00or humiliated for not following through on a goal is another.
18:02Come up with two or three things,
18:04fear-based, perhaps, love-based, perhaps, or perhaps several
18:08of those in order to ensure alertness, energy, and attention
18:13for the task.
18:14And that brings us to the attention part.
18:16Now, it's one thing to have an electrode embedded
18:18into your brain and increase the amount of acetylcholine.
18:21It's another to exist in the real world
18:23outside the laboratory and have trouble focusing, having trouble
18:27bringing your attention to a particular location in space
18:31for a particular event.
18:32And there's a lot of discussion nowadays about smartphones
18:36and devices creating a sort of attention deficit,
18:40almost at a clinical level for many people, including adults.
18:43I think that's largely true.
18:45And what it means, however, is that we all
18:47are responsible for learning how to create depth of focus.
18:52There are some important neuroscience principles
18:54to get depth of focus.
18:56I want to briefly talk about the pharmacology first
18:58because I always get asked about this.
19:00People say, what can I take to increase
19:02my levels of acetylcholine?
19:03Well, there are things you can take.
19:05Nicotine is called nicotine because acetylcholine binds
19:09to the nicotinic receptor.
19:11There are two kinds of acetylcholine receptors,
19:13muscarinic and nicotinic.
19:14But the nicotinic ones are involved
19:15in attention and alertness.
19:18I have colleagues-- these are not my kind of like bro science
19:23buddies.
19:23I have those friends, too.
19:25This is a Nobel Prize-winning colleague who
19:28chews Nicorette while he works.
19:29But when I asked him, why are you doing this,
19:31he said, well, it increases my alertness and focus.
19:34Now, I've tried chewing Nicorette.
19:35It makes me super jittery.
19:37I don't like it because I can't focus very well.
19:39It kind of takes me too far up the level of autonomic arousal.
19:42I've got friends that dip Nicorette all day.
19:45If you're going to go down that route,
19:46you want to be very careful how much you rely
19:49on those all the time because the essence of plasticity
19:53is to create a window of attention and focus
19:55that's distinct from the rest of your day.
19:58So what are some ways that you can increase acetylcholine?
20:01How do you increase focus?
20:03The best way to get better at focusing
20:07is to use the mechanisms of focus that you were born with.
20:11And the key principle here is that mental focus
20:15follows visual focus.
20:18We are all familiar with the fact
20:20that our visual system can be unfocused, blurry, or jumping
20:24around, or we can be very laser-focused
20:26on one location in space.
20:28What's interesting and vitally important to understanding
20:31how to access neuroplasticity is that you
20:34can use your visual focus, and you
20:36can increase your visual focus as a way
20:39of increasing your mental focus abilities more broadly.
20:43So I'm going to explain how to do that.
20:45Plasticity starts with alertness.
20:48That alertness can come from a sense of love, a sense of joy,
20:52a sense of fear.
20:53Doesn't matter.
20:55There are pharmacologic ways to access alertness, too.
20:58The most common one is, of course, caffeine.
21:01Many people are now also using Adderall.
21:05Adderall will not increase focus.
21:07It increases alertness.
21:08It does not touch the acetylcholine system.
21:11The acetylcholine system and the focus that it brings
21:14is available, as I mentioned, through pharmacology, but also
21:18through these behavioral practices.
21:20And the behavioral practices that
21:22are anchored in visual focus are going
21:24to be the ones that are going to allow you to develop great depth
21:28and duration of focus.
21:30So let's think about visual focus for a second.
21:33When we focus on something visually, we have two options.
21:38We can either look at a very small region of space
21:41with a lot of detail and a lot of precision,
21:44or we can dilate our gaze and we can
21:46see big pieces of visual space with very little detail.
21:49It's a trade-off.
21:50We can't look at everything at high resolution.
21:52This is why we have these.
21:53The pupil more or less relates to the fovea
21:55of the eye, which is the area in which we have the most
21:58receptors, the highest density of receptors
22:00that perceive light.
22:01And so our acuity is much better in the center
22:04of our visual field than in our periphery.
22:06When we focus our eyes, we do a couple of things.
22:09First of all, we tend to do that in the center
22:11of our visual field, and our two eyes
22:13tend to align in what's called a vergence eye movement
22:15towards a common point.
22:17The other thing that happens is the lens of our eye moves,
22:20so that our brain, now, no longer sees
22:22the entire visual world, but is seeing
22:24a small cone of visual imagery.
22:27That small cone of visual imagery,
22:29or soda straw view of the world, has much higher acuity, higher
22:33resolution, than if I were to look at everything.
22:37Now you say, of course, this makes perfect sense.
22:39But that's about visual attention, not mental attention.
22:42Well, it turns out that focus in the brain
22:45is anchored to our visual system.
22:48I'll talk about blind people in a moment.
22:50But assuming that somebody is sighted,
22:52the key is to learn how to focus better visually if you
22:56want to bring about higher levels of cognitive or mental
23:00focus.
23:00When we move our eyes slightly inward--
23:04maybe you can tell that I'm doing this-- like so, basically
23:08shortening or making the interpupillary distance,
23:11as it's called, smaller, two things happen.
23:14Not only do we develop a smaller visual window into the world,
23:18but we activate a set of neurons in our brain
23:21stem that trigger the release of both norepinephrine,
23:26epinephrine, and acetylcholine.
23:28Norepinephrine is kind of similar to epinephrine.
23:30So in other words, when our eyes are
23:32relaxed in our head, when we're just
23:34kind of looking at our entire visual environment,
23:35moving our head around, moving through space,
23:37we're in optic flow, things moving past us,
23:39we're sitting still, we're looking broadly at our space,
23:43we're relaxed.
23:44When our eyes move slightly inward
23:47toward a particular visual target,
23:49our visual world shrinks, our level of visual focus goes up,
23:53and we know that this relates to the release of acetylcholine
23:57and epinephrine at the relevant sites
23:58in the brain for plasticity.
24:00Now, what this means is that if you have a hard time focusing
24:04your mind for sake of reading or for listening,
24:08you need to practice-- and you can practice--
24:10focusing your visual system.
24:12Now, this works best if you practice
24:15focusing your visual system at the precise distance
24:18from the work that you intend to do for sake of plasticity.
24:21So how would this look in the real world?
24:23Let's say I am trying to concentrate on something related
24:27to, I don't know, science.
24:28I'm reading a science paper and I'm having a hard time.
24:31It's not absorbing.
24:32Spending just 60 to 120 seconds focusing my visual attention
24:38on a small window of my screen, meaning just on my screen
24:42with nothing on it, but bringing my eyes
24:44to that particular location increases not just
24:47my visual acuity for that location,
24:49but it brings about an increase in activity
24:52in a bunch of other brain areas that
24:55are associated with gathering information from this location.
25:00So, put simply, if you want to improve your ability to focus,
25:05practice visual focus.
25:07Now, you may ask, well, what about the experiment
25:11where people were feeling this rotating drum
25:13or listening to the auditory cue?
25:14That does involve vision at all.
25:16Ah.
25:16If you look at people who are learning things
25:20with their auditory system, they will often close their eyes.
25:22And that's not a coincidence.
25:24If somebody is listening very hard,
25:26please don't ask them to look you directly in the eye
25:29while also asking that they listen to you.
25:30That's actually one of the worst ways
25:32to get somebody to listen to you.
25:33If you say, now listen to me and look me in the eye,
25:35the visual system will take over and they'll see your mouth move,
25:38but they're going to hear their thoughts more than they're going
25:39to hear what you're saying.
25:41Closing the eyes is one of the best ways
25:44to create a cone of auditory attention.
25:46And this is what low-vision or no-vision folks do.
25:49They have tremendous capacity to focus their attention
25:52in particular locations.
25:53And for most people, vision is the primary way
25:56to train up this focus ability and these cones of attention.
25:59So you absolutely have to focus on the thing
26:00that you're trying to learn, and you
26:02will feel some agitation because of the epinephrine
26:05in your system.
26:06If you're feeling agitation and it's challenging to focus
26:09and you're feeling like you're not doing it right,
26:11chances are you're doing it right.
26:13So once you get this epinephrine, this alertness,
26:15you get the acetylcholine released and you
26:18can focus your attention, then the question is, for how long?
26:21And in an earlier podcast, I talked
26:22about these ultradian cycles that last about 90 minutes.
26:26The typical learning bout should be about 90 minutes.
26:29I think that learning bout will no doubt include 5 to 10 minutes
26:34of a warm-up period.
26:35I think everyone should give themselves
26:36permission to not be fully focused
26:38in the early part of that bout, but that in the middle
26:42of that bout for the middle hour or so,
26:43you should be able to maintain focus for about an hour or so.
26:46So that, for me, means eliminating distractions.
26:49That means turning off the Wi-Fi.
26:51I put my phone in the other room.
26:52I encourage you to try experiencing
26:54what it is to be completely immersed in an activity
26:57where you feel the agitation that your attention is drifting,
27:00but you continually bring it back.
27:02And that's an important point, which is that attention drifts,
27:04but we have to re-anchor it.
27:06We have to keep grabbing it back.
27:07And the way to do that, if you're sighted,
27:09is with your eyes, that as your attention drifts and you look
27:12away, you want to try and literally
27:14maintain visual focus on the thing
27:15that you're trying to learn.
27:17That's the trigger for plasticity.
27:19But the real secret is that neuroplasticity
27:23doesn't occur during wakefulness,
27:26it occurs during sleep.
27:28We now know that if you focus very hard on something
27:34for about 90 minutes or so, maybe you even
27:36do several bouts of that per day,
27:38if you can do that-- some people can.
27:40Some people can only do one focus bout of learning--
27:43that night and the following nights while you sleep,
27:47the neural circuits that were highlighted, if you will,
27:50with acetylcholine transmission, will strengthen.
27:52And other ones will be lost, which
27:55is wonderful because that's the essence of plasticity.
27:57And what it means is that when you eventually
27:59wake up a couple of days or a week later,
28:02you will have acquired the knowledge forever,
28:04unless you go through some process to actively unlearn it.
28:08So mastering sleep is key in order
28:10to reinforce the learning that occurs.
28:11But let's say you get a really poor night of sleep
28:14after a bout of learning.
28:15Chances are, if you sleep the next night or the following
28:18night, that learning will occur.
28:21There's a stamp in the brain where this acetylcholine was
28:24released.
28:24It actually marks those synapses neurochemically and
28:27metabolically so that those synapses are more
28:30biased to change.
28:31Now, if you don't ever get that deep sleep,
28:34then you probably won't get those changes.
28:37There is also a way in which you can
28:38bypass the need for deep sleep, at least
28:41partially, by engaging in what I call non-sleep deep rest,
28:45these NSDR protocols.
28:46But I just want to discuss the science of this.
28:48There was a paper that was published
28:50in Cell Reports last year that shows that if people did--
28:55it was a spatial memory task, actually quite difficult one,
28:57where they had to remember the sequence of lights lighting up.
29:00And if there were just two or three lights
29:01in a particular sequence, it's easy.
29:03But as you get up to 15 or 16 lights and numbers
29:07in the sequence, it actually gets quite challenging.
29:09If immediately after-- and it was immediately after
29:13the learning, the actual performance of this task,
29:15people took a 20-minute non-sleep deep-rest protocol
29:21or took a shallow nap, so lying down, feet slightly elevated,
29:25perhaps, just closing their eyes, no sensory input,
29:29the rates of learning were significantly higher for that
29:32information than were they to just had a good night's sleep
29:36the following night.
29:37So you can actually accelerate learning
29:38with these NSDR protocols or with brief naps, 90 minutes
29:42or less.
29:42For many people, letting the mind drift,
29:45where it's not organized in thought,
29:48after a period of very deliberate, focused effort,
29:50is the best way to accelerate learning and depth of learning.
29:53I want to synthesize some of the information
29:55that we've covered up until now.
29:57Today, I want to make sure that these key elements that
30:00form the backbone of neuroplasticity
30:02are really embedded in people's minds.
30:04First of all, plasticity occurs throughout the lifespan.
30:08If you want to learn as an adult, you have to be alert.
30:12It might seem so obvious, but I think a lot of people
30:15don't think about when in their 24-hour cycle they're most
30:19alert.
30:19Just ask yourself when during the day
30:21do you typically tend to be most alert?
30:23That will afford you an advantage
30:26in learning specific things during that period of time.
30:29So don't give up that period of time
30:31for things that are meaningless, useless, or not aligned
30:34with your goals.
30:35That epinephrine released from your brain stem is going
30:39to occur more readily at particular phases
30:42of your 24-hour cycle than others--
30:44during the waking phase, of course.
30:47You should know when those are.
30:48Increasing acetylcholine can be accomplished pharmacologically
30:52through nicotine.
30:53However, there are certain dangers for many people
30:56to do that, as well as a cost.
30:59financial cost.
31:01Learning how to engage the cholinergic system
31:03through the use of the visual system.
31:05Practicing; how long can you maintain focus
31:08with blinks as you need them.
31:11But how long can you maintain visual focus on a target,
31:15just on a piece of paper set a few feet away in the room,
31:18or at the level of your computer screen.
31:20These are actually things that people
31:21do in communities where high levels of visual focus
31:24are necessary.
31:25What we're really talking about here
31:26is trying to harness the mechanisms of attention
31:29and get better at paying attention.
31:30You may want to do that with your auditory system, not
31:33with your visual system, either because you're
31:35low-vision or no-vision, or because you're
31:37trying to learn something that relates more to sounds.
31:39You should also ask yourself whether or not
31:41you're trying to focus too much for too long during the day.
31:46I know some very high-performing individuals,
31:49very high-performing in a variety of contexts,
31:52and none of them are focused all day long.
31:54Many of them take walks down the hallway,
31:55sometimes mumbling to themselves or not paying attention
31:58to anything else.
31:59They go for bike rides, they take walks.
32:01They are not trying to engage their mind at maximum focus
32:04all the time.
32:05Very few people do that because we learn best in these 90-minute
32:10bouts inside of one of these ultradian cycles.
32:12And I should repeat again that within that 90-minute cycle,
32:15you should not expect yourself to focus for the entire period
32:18of one 90-minute cycle.
32:19The beginning and end are going to be a little bit
32:21flickering in and out of focus.
32:22How do you know when one of these 90-minute cycles is
32:25starting?
32:26Well, typically when you wake up is the beginning of the first
32:2890-minute cycle, but it's not down to the minute.
32:30You'll be able to tap into your sense of these 90-minute cycles
32:34as you start to engage in these learning practices,
32:36should you choose.
32:37And then, of course, getting some non-sleep deep rest
32:40or just deliberate disengagement,
32:42such as walking or running or just sitting,
32:47eyes closed or eyes open, kind of mindlessly, it might seem,
32:50in a chair.
32:51Just letting your thoughts move around
32:52after a learning bout will accelerate
32:55the rate of plasticity.
32:56And then, of course, deep sleep.
32:57Many of you have very graciously asked
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33:35Thanks so much for your time and attention, and as always,
33:38thank you for your interest in science.
33:39[MUSIC PLAYING]

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