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How to Learn Faster by Using Failures, Movement & Balance | Huberman Lab Essentials — Transcript

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0:00Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,
0:02where we revisit past episodes for the
0:04most potent and actionable science-based
0:06tools for mental health, physical
0:08health, and performance.
0:11My name is Andrew Huberman, and I'm a
0:13professor of neurobiology and
0:14ophthalmology at Stanford School of
0:16Medicine. Today, we're going to talk
0:18about how to change your nervous system
0:20for the better.
0:21As you recall, your nervous system
0:23includes your brain and your spinal
0:25cord, but also all the connections that
0:27your brain and spinal cord make with the
0:29organs of your body
0:31and all the connections that the organs
0:33of your body make with your brain and
0:34spinal cord.
0:36Now, this thing that we call the nervous
0:37system is responsible for everything we
0:39know,
0:40all our behavior, all our emotions,
0:43everything we feel about ourselves and
0:44the outside world, everything we think
0:46and believe. It's really at the center
0:48of our entire experience of life and who
0:51we are.
0:53Fortunately, in humans, unlike in other
0:55species,
0:57we can change our nervous system by
0:59taking some very specific and deliberate
1:01actions. And today, we're really going
1:03to focus on the actions, the motor
1:06commands, and the aspects of movement
1:09and balance
1:11that allow us to change our nervous
1:12system. It turns out that movement and
1:15balance actually provide windows or
1:17portals into our ability to change our
1:20nervous system the way we want, even if
1:23those changes are not about learning new
1:25movements or learning how to balance.
1:27And soon, you'll understand why. So,
1:29let's talk about the different kinds of
1:31plasticity that are available to us.
1:34Because those will point directly
1:36towards the type of protocols that we
1:38should engage in to change ourselves for
1:40the better.
1:41There is something called
1:42representational plasticity.
1:44Representational plasticity is just your
1:46internal representation of the outside
1:48world. We know that, for instance, if I
1:49want to reach out and grab the pen in
1:51front of me that I need to generate a
1:52certain amount of force, so I rarely
1:54overshoot. I rarely miss the pen, Okay?
1:58So, our maps of the motor world and our
2:01maps of the sensory world are merged.
2:04The way to create plasticity
2:08is to create mismatches or errors in how
2:12we perform things. And this I think is
2:14an amazing and important feature of
2:16neuroplasticity that is highly under
2:18appreciated. The way to create
2:21plasticity is to send signals to the
2:24brain that something is wrong, something
2:27is different, and something isn't being
2:29achieved. Errors.
2:31And making errors out of sync with what
2:34we would like to do is how our nervous
2:36system is cued through very distinct
2:39biological mechanisms that something
2:41isn't going right and therefore certain
2:44neurochemicals are deployed that will
2:47signal the neural circuits that they
2:48have to change. So, let's talk about
2:51errors and making errors and why and how
2:54that triggers of chemicals that then
2:56allow us to not just learn the thing
2:58that we're doing in the motor sense,
3:00play the piano, dance, etc., but it also
3:03creates an environment and milieu within
3:05the brain that allows us to then go
3:08learn how to couple or uncouple a
3:10particular emotion to an experience or
3:13better language learning or better
3:14mathematical learning. Last episode we
3:17discussed some of the basic principles
3:18of neuroplasticity.
3:20If you didn't hear that episode, no
3:22problem. I'll just review it quickly,
3:25which is that it's a falsehood that
3:28everything that we do and experience
3:30changes our brain. Brain changes when
3:32certain neurochemicals, namely
3:34acetylcholine, epinephrine, and dopamine
3:37are released in ways and in the specific
3:40times that allow for neural circuits to
3:42be marked for change and then the change
3:44occurs later during sleep. Basically,
3:46you need a certain cocktail of chemicals
3:48released in the brain in order for a
3:50particular behavior to reshape the way
3:52that our brain works.
3:54So, the question really is what allows
3:56those neurochemicals to be released? And
3:58last episode it talked all about focus.
4:00If you haven't seen or heard that
4:02episode, you might want to check it out
4:04about some specific tools and practices
4:07that can allow you to build up your
4:08capacity for focus and release certain
4:10chemicals in that cocktail. But today
4:12we're going to talk about the other
4:13chemicals in the cocktail, in particular
4:16dopamine.
4:17And we're really going to center our
4:19discussion around this issue of making
4:23errors and why making errors is actually
4:25the signal that tells the brain, "Okay,
4:27it's time to change." Or, more
4:29generally,
4:31it's time to pay attention to things so
4:33that you change. And I really want to
4:36distinguish this
4:38point really clearly, which is that I'm
4:40going to talk today a lot about motor
4:42and vestibular, meaning balance,
4:44programs, but not just for learning
4:46motor commands and and balance, but also
4:49for setting a stage or a kind of
4:51conditioning your brain where you can go
4:52learn other things as well.
4:54So,
4:55let's talk about some classic
4:56experiments that really nail down
5:00what's most important in this discussion
5:01about plasticity.
5:03So, I mentioned last episode, and I'll
5:04just tell you right now again, the brain
5:06is incredibly plastic from about birth
5:10until about age 25. And then somewhere
5:12about 25, it's not like the day after
5:15your 26th birthday plasticity closes,
5:17there's a kind of tapering off of
5:19plasticity, and you need different
5:21mechanisms to engage plasticity as an
5:23adult. Knowing how to tap into these
5:25plasticity mechanisms is very powerful.
5:29The simplest example is if I hear
5:30something off to my right, I look to my
5:33right.
5:34If I hear it on the left, I look to my
5:36left. If I hear it right in front of me,
5:38I keep looking right in front of me, and
5:39that's because our maps of visual space
5:43and our maps of auditory space and our
5:46maps of motor space
5:48are aligned to one another in perfect
5:50register. It's an incredible feature of
5:53our nervous system. It takes place in a
5:54structure called the superior
5:55colliculus, although you don't need to
5:57know that name.
5:58Superior colliculus has a layers,
6:00literally stacks of neurons like in a
6:03sandwich, where the zero point right in
6:06front of me, or maybe, you know, 10 or
6:0815 degrees off to my right or 10 or 15
6:10degrees off to my left, are aligned so
6:13that the the auditory neurons, the ones
6:15that care about sounds at 15 degrees to
6:18my right, sit directly below the neurons
6:21that look at 15 degrees to my right in
6:23my visual system. And when I reach over
6:26to this direction, there's a signal
6:28that's that's sent down through those
6:30layers that says, "15 degrees off to the
6:32right is the direction to look. It's the
6:34direction to listen, and it's the
6:36direction to move if I need to move."
6:38So, there's an alignment. And this is
6:40really powerful, and this is what allows
6:42us to move through space and function in
6:44our lives in a really fluid way.
6:46It's set up during development,
6:48but there have been some important
6:50experiments that have revealed that this
6:53these maps are plastic, meaning they can
6:56shift. They're subject to
6:57neuroplasticity,
6:58and there are specific rules that allow
7:01us to shift them. So, here's the key
7:04experiment. The key experiment was done
7:06by a colleague of mine,
7:09who's now retired, but whose work is
7:10absolutely fundamental in the field of
7:12neuroplasticity, Eric Knudsen.
7:14The Knudsen lab, and many of the Knudsen
7:17lab scientific offspring,
7:19showed that if one
7:22is to wear prism glasses that shift the
7:24visual field,
7:26that eventually there'll be a shift in
7:29the representation of the auditory and
7:31motor maps, too. Now, what they
7:33initially did is they looked at young
7:35subjects.
7:37And what they did is they moved the
7:40visual world by making them wear prism
7:42glasses, so that for instance, if a if
7:44my pen is out in front of me at, you
7:46know, 5° off center, so just a little
7:48bit off center. If you're listening to
7:50this, this would be like just a little
7:51bit to my right.
7:52But in these prism glasses,
7:55I actually see that pen way over far on
7:58my right. So, it's actually here, but I
8:00see it over there because I'm wearing
8:03prisms on my eyes. What happens is in
8:05the first day or so, you ask people or
8:07you ask animal subjects or whatever to
8:10reach for this object, and they reach to
8:12the wrong place because they're seeing
8:15it where it isn't.
8:16But what you find is that in young
8:18individuals, within a day or two, they
8:21start adjusting their motor behavior
8:24in exactly the right way so that they
8:27always reach to the correct location.
8:29So, they hear a sound at one location,
8:30they see the object that ought to make
8:32that sound at at a different location,
8:34and they somehow are able to adjust
8:36their motor behavior to reach to the
8:39correct location. It's incredible.
8:42And what it tells us is that these maps
8:44that are aligned to one another can move
8:46and shift, and it happens best in young
8:49individuals.
8:51If you do this in older individuals,
8:53in most cases, it takes a very long time
8:56for the maps to shift, and in some
8:58cases, they never shift. So, this is a
9:00very experimental scenario, but it's an
9:02important one to understand because it
9:04really tamps down the fact that we have
9:08the capacity to create dramatic shifts
9:11in our representation of the outside
9:12world.
9:15So, how can we get
9:17plasticity
9:18as adults that mimics the plasticity
9:21that we get when we are juveniles? Well,
9:23the Knudsen lab and other labs have
9:24looked at this,
9:26and it's really interesting. The signal
9:29that generates the plasticity
9:31is
9:33the making of errors. It's the reaches
9:36and failures that signal to these to the
9:39nervous system
9:41that this is not working and therefore
9:43the shifts start to take place.
9:46And this is so fundamentally important
9:48because I think most people
9:50understandably get frustrated like
9:51they're trying to learn a piece on the
9:53piano and they don't know they can't do
9:54it or they're trying to write a piece of
9:55code or they're trying to access some
9:57sort of motor behavior and they can't do
9:59it and the frustration drives them crazy
10:01and like I can't do it I can't do it
10:02when they don't realize that the the
10:04errors themselves are signaling to the
10:07brain and nervous system something's not
10:09working and of course the brain doesn't
10:11understand the words something isn't
10:13working. But the brain doesn't even
10:14understand frustration as an emotional
10:16state. The brain understands the
10:19neurochemicals that are released namely
10:22epinephrine
10:23and acetylcholine but also and we'll get
10:26into this the molecule dopamine when we
10:28start to approximate the correct
10:30behavior just a little bit. And we start
10:33getting it a little bit right. So what
10:35happens is when we make errors the
10:38nervous system starts releasing
10:39neurotransmitters and neuromodulators
10:42that say we better change something in
10:43the circuitry. And so errors are the
10:45basis for neuroplasticity and for
10:48learning and I wish that this was more
10:50prominent prominent out there. I guess
10:52this is why I'm saying it
10:54and humans do not like this feeling of
10:56frustration and and making errors. The
10:58few that do
11:00do exceedingly well in whatever pursuits
11:03they happen to be involved in. The ones
11:05that don't generally don't do well.
11:07They generally don't learn much and if
11:09you think about it why would your
11:10nervous system ever change? Why would it
11:13ever change unless there was something
11:14to be afraid of something that made us
11:16feel awful will signal that the nervous
11:18system needs to change or there's an
11:21error in our performance. So it turns
11:22out that the feedback of these errors
11:25the reaching to the wrong location
11:28starts to release a number of things and
11:30now you've heard about them many times
11:32but this would be epinephrine. It
11:33increases alertness.
11:35Acetylcholine, focus. Because if
11:37acetylcholine is released, it creates an
11:39opportunity to focus on
11:41the the error margin, the distance
11:43between what it is that you're doing and
11:45what it is that you would like to do.
11:47And then the nervous system
11:49starts to make changes almost
11:51immediately in order to try and get the
11:53behavior right. And when you start
11:55getting it even a little bit right, that
11:57third molecule comes online or is
11:59released, which is dopamine, which
12:01allows for the plastic changes to occur
12:03very fast. Now, this is what all happens
12:05very naturally in young brains, but in
12:07old brains
12:08it tends to be pretty slow, except for
12:10in two conditions.
12:13So, let me just pause and just say this.
12:14If you are uncomfortable making errors
12:17and you get frustrated easy
12:19easily
12:22if you leverage that frustration
12:25toward drilling deeper into the
12:27endeavor, you are setting yourself up
12:29for a terrific set of plasticity
12:32mechanisms to engage. But if you take
12:34that frustration and you walk away from
12:36the endeavor, you are essentially
12:38setting up plasticity to rewire you
12:41according to what happens afterwards,
12:43which is generally feeling pretty
12:44miserable. So, now you can kind of start
12:46to appreciate why it is that continuing
12:48to drill into a process to the point of
12:50frustration, but then staying with that
12:52process for a little bit longer, and
12:54I'll define exactly what I mean by a
12:55little bit, is
12:57the
12:58the most important thing for adult
13:01learning, as well as childhood learning,
13:03but adult learning in particular. Now,
13:05the Knutson lab did two very important
13:07sets of experiments.
13:09The first one, which showed that
13:11juveniles can make these massive shifts
13:14in their map representations. They get a
13:16lot of plasticity
13:18all at once. It happens very fast in the
13:20period of just a a couple days.
13:23In adults it gen- tends to be very slow,
13:25and most individuals never actually
13:27accomplish the full map shift. They
13:30don't get the plasticity. Then what they
13:32did is they started making the increment
13:35of change smaller. So instead of
13:37shifting
13:38the world a huge amount by putting
13:40prisms that shifted the the visual world
13:43of you know, all the way over to the
13:44right, they did this incrementally. So
13:46the first they put on prisms that
13:48shifted it just a little bit, you know,
13:50and just like 7° I believe was the exact
13:52number. And then it was 14°. And then it
13:55was 28°. So what they found was that the
13:57adult nervous system can tolerate
13:59smaller and smaller errors over time,
14:03but that you can stack those errors so
14:05that you can get a lot of plasticity.
14:07Put simply,
14:08incremental learning as an adult is
14:10absolutely essential. You are not going
14:12to get massive shifts in your
14:14representations of the outside world. So
14:16how do you make small errors as opposed
14:18to big errors? Well,
14:20the key is
14:22smaller bouts of focused learning
14:25for smaller bits of information.
14:28It's a mistake to try and learn a lot of
14:32information in one learning bout as an
14:34adult. Now there is one way to get a lot
14:38of plasticity all at once as an adult.
14:40There is that kind of holy grail thing
14:42of
14:43you know, getting massive plasticity
14:46as you would when you were a a young
14:49person but as an adult. And the Knudsen
14:52lab revealed this
14:54by
14:55setting a very serious contingency on
14:58the learning.
15:00What they did was they had a situation
15:02where subjects had to find food that was
15:06displaced in their visual world again by
15:08putting prisms and they had to find the
15:10food and the food made a noise. There
15:12was a noise set kind of the location of
15:14the food through an array of speakers.
15:16Basically, in order to eat at all, they
15:20needed plasticity. And then what
15:23happened was remarkable. What they
15:25observed is that the plasticity as an
15:27adult can be as dramatic, as robust as
15:30it is in a young person
15:32or in a young animal subject provided
15:36that there's a serious incentive for the
15:38plasticity to occur. And this is
15:40absolutely important to understand,
15:42which is that
15:44how badly we need or want the plasticity
15:47determines how fast that plasticity will
15:50arrive. This means that the importance
15:52of something, how important something is
15:53to us, actually gates the rate of
15:56plasticity and the magnitude of
15:58plasticity. And this is why just
16:00passively going through most things,
16:03going through the motions as we say, or
16:05just getting our reps in, {quote}
16:07{unquote}, is not sufficient to get the
16:10nervous system to change.
16:12If we actually have to
16:14accomplish something in order to eat
16:16or in order to get our ration of
16:19income
16:20we will reshape our nervous system very,
16:22very quickly. And so, I think that the
16:25studies that Knudsen did showing that
16:27incremental learning can create a huge
16:30degree of plasticity as an adult, as
16:32well as when the contingency is very
16:34high
16:36meaning we need to eat or we need to
16:38make an income or we need to do
16:39something that's vitally important for
16:41us
16:42that plasticity can happen in these
16:45enormous leaps, just like they can in
16:48adolescence and young adulthood.
16:50That points to the fact that it has to
16:52be a neurochemical system. There has to
16:54be an underlying mechanism. All the
16:57chemicals that we're about to talk about
16:59are released from drug stores, if you
17:02will, chemical stores that already
17:04reside in all of our brains. And the key
17:06is
17:07how to tap into those stores. And so,
17:10we're going to next talk about what are
17:12the specific behaviors that liberate
17:15particular categories of chemicals
17:18that allow us to make the most of
17:19incremental learning and that set the
17:22stage for plasticity that is similar
17:25enough or mimics these high contingency
17:28states like the need to get food or
17:30really create a sense of internal
17:33urgency, chemical urgency if you will.
17:35If you've heard previous episodes of
17:37this podcast
17:38you may have heard me talk about
17:39ultradian rhythms which are these
17:4190-minute rhythms
17:43that break up our 24-hour day they
17:47help break up our sleep into different
17:49cycles of sleep like REM sleep and
17:51non-REM sleep and in waking states they
17:52help us or I should say they
17:56break up our day in ways that allow us
17:58to learn best within 90-minute cycles
18:00etc. Today we're really talking about
18:02how to tap into plasticity through the
18:06completion of a task or or working
18:09towards something repetitively and
18:11making errors. The ultradian cycle says
18:13that for the first 5 to 10 minutes of
18:16doing that your mind is going to drift
18:18and your focus will probably kick in
18:20provided that you're visually you're
18:22restricting your visual world to the
18:24just the material in front of you,
18:26something we talked about last episode.
18:28Somewhere around the 10 or 15-minute
18:29mark and then at best you're probably
18:32going to get about an hour of
18:34uh deliberate kind of tunnel vision uh
18:36learning in there. Your mind will drift
18:39and then toward the end of that what is
18:41now an hour and 10 or hour and 20-minute
18:44um cycle
18:45your brain will start start to flicker
18:47in and out. You're trying your best to
18:48accomplish something and you're failing.
18:50You want to keep making errors for this
18:52period of time that I'm saying will last
18:55anywhere for about 7 to 30 minutes. It
18:57is exceedingly frustrating but that
19:00frustration it liberates the chemical
19:03cues that signal that plasticity needs
19:05to happen and it is the case that when
19:06we come back a day or two later in a
19:08learning bout after a nap or a night or
19:10two of deep rest then what we find is
19:13that we can remember certain things and
19:15the motor pathways work and we don't
19:17always get it perfectly, but we get a
19:18lot of it right, whereas we got it wrong
19:20before. So, that 7-30 minute intense
19:24learning bout, specifically about making
19:26errors. I want to really underscore
19:29that. And it's not about, uh, as I
19:31mentioned before, coming up with some
19:33little hack or trick or, um,
19:35or something of that sort. It's really
19:37about trying to cue the nervous system
19:40that something needs to change because
19:41otherwise it simply won't change.
19:43I think everyone could stand to enhance
19:46the rate of learning by doing the
19:47following.
19:49Learn to attach dopamine in a subjective
19:51way to this process of making errors
19:54because that's really combining two
19:56modes of plasticity in ways that
19:59together can accelerate the plasticity.
20:01So, in other words, making failures
20:03repe- if failing repetitively,
20:05provided we're engaged in a very
20:07specific set of behaviors when we do it,
20:09as well as telling ourselves that those
20:10failures are good for learning and good
20:12for us,
20:13creates an outsized effect on the rate
20:16of plasticity. It It accelerates
20:18plasticity.
20:19Now, some of you might be asking, and I
20:21get asked a lot, well, how do I get
20:23dopamine to be released? You know, can I
20:24just tell myself that something is good
20:26when it's bad? Well, actually, yes.
20:28Believe it or not, dopamine is one of
20:31these incredible molecules that both can
20:33be released
20:35according to things that are hardwired
20:37in us to release dopamine. Again, things
20:39like food, sex, warmth or cold, uh, cool
20:42environments when we're too warm. It's
20:44that kind of pleasure molecule, uh,
20:47overall,
20:48but
20:49it's also highly subjective
20:52what releases dopamine in one person
20:54versus the next. So, everyone releases
20:56dopamine in response to those very basic
20:58kind of behaviors and and activities,
21:00but dopamine is also released according
21:04to what we subjectively believe is good
21:06for us. And that's what's so powerful
21:08about it. In fact, a book that I highly
21:09recommend if you want to read more about
21:10dopamine, it's a book that frankly I
21:12wish I had written. It's such a
21:13wonderful book. It's called The Molecule
21:15of More, and it really talks about
21:17dopamine not just as a molecule
21:19associated with reward, but a molecule
21:21associated with motivation and pursuit
21:23and just how subjectively controlled
21:26dopamine can be. So, make lots of
21:28errors.
21:29Tell yourself that those errors are
21:31important and good for your overall
21:33learning goals. So, learn to attach
21:35dopamine, meaning release dopamine
21:38in your brain when you start to make
21:40errors. Once you're attaching dopamine
21:42to this process of making errors,
21:45then I start getting lots of questions
21:47that I really are the the right
21:48questions, which are, you know,
21:50"How often should I do this?" and "When
21:52should I be doing this?" and "At what
21:53time?" Well, I've talked a little bit
21:55about this in previous episodes, but as
21:56long as we're in a now kind of into the
21:58nitty-gritty of tools and application,
22:00each of us have some natural times
22:02throughout the day when we are going to
22:04be
22:05much better at tolerating these errors
22:08and much more focused on what it is that
22:10we're trying to do. Last episode was
22:12about focus, but chances are that you
22:14can't focus as well at 4:00 p.m. as you
22:17can at 10:00 a.m. It differs for
22:19everybody depending on when you're
22:20sleeping and your kind of natural
22:21chemistry and rhythms, but find the time
22:25or times of day when you naturally have
22:27the highest mental acuity, and that's
22:30really when you want to engage in these
22:32learning bouts. And then get to the
22:34point where you're making errors and
22:35then keep making errors for 7 to 30
22:38minutes. Just keep making those errors
22:39and drill through it, and you're almost
22:42seeking frustration, and if you can find
22:44some pleasure in the frustration, yes,
22:45that is a state that exists, you have
22:47created the optimal neurochemical milieu
22:50for learning that thing.
22:52But then here's the beauty of it. You
22:54also have created the optimal milieu for
22:57learning other things afterward. At
23:00least for an hour or so, I would say,
23:02you're going to be in a state of
23:03heightened learning. Again, these aren't
23:05gimmicks. These tap into these basic
23:07mechanisms of plasticity. And the three
23:10that I'd like to talk about next
23:13are
23:14balance,
23:15meaning the vestibular system, as well
23:17as the two sides of what I call limbic
23:21friction or autonomic arousal. And if
23:23none of that makes sense, I'm going to
23:25put a a fine point on each one of those
23:27and what it is and why it works for
23:30opening up neuroplasticity. Let's talk
23:32about limbic friction. Limbic friction,
23:35I realize, is not something you're going
23:36to find in any of the textbooks,
23:39but it is an important principle that
23:42captures a lot of information that is in
23:44textbooks, both neurobiology and
23:46psychology, and it has some really
23:48important implications.
23:52Limbic friction is my attempt to give a
23:54name to something that is more nuanced
23:57and mechanistic than stress. Because
24:00typically when we hear about stress, we
24:02think of heart rate heartbeat going too
24:04fast, breathing too fast, sweating, and
24:07not being in a state that we want. We're
24:08too alert and we want to be more calm.
24:11And indeed, that's one condition in
24:13which
24:14we have limbic friction, meaning our
24:16limbic system is taking control of a
24:19number of different aspects of our
24:21autonomic or auto- automatic biology,
24:24and we are struggling to control that
24:28through what we call top-down
24:29mechanisms. We're trying to calm down in
24:31order to reduce that level of arousal.
24:34We're all familiar with this. It's
24:35called the stress response. However,
24:37there's another aspect of stress that's
24:40just as important, which is when we're
24:42tired and we're fatigued and we need to
24:44engage, we need to be more alert than we
24:47are. And so, what I call limbic friction
24:50is really designed to describe the fact
24:52that when our autonomic nervous system
24:53isn't where we want it, meaning we're
24:55trying to be more alert or we're trying
24:57to be less alert, both of those feel
24:59stressful to people. But, the reason I'm
25:00bringing this up
25:02is that
25:03in order to access neural plasticity,
25:06you need these components of focus, you
25:08need the component of of
25:10attaching subjective reward, you need to
25:12make errors, all this stuff. And a lot
25:14of people find it difficult to just get
25:17into the overall state
25:19to access those things. Here's the the
25:21beauty of it.
25:23If you are too alert, meaning you're too
25:25you know, anxious,
25:27and you want to calm down in order to
25:29learn better, there are things that you
25:31can do. The two that I've spoken about
25:33previously
25:34on various podcasts, I'll just review
25:36them really quickly, are the double
25:37inhale exhale. So, inhaling twice
25:39through the nose and exhaling once
25:40through the mouth. This is what's called
25:42a physiological sigh. It offloads carbon
25:44dioxide from the lungs.
25:46The other thing is starting to remove
25:47your tunnel vision. You know, when you
25:49use tunnel vision, you're very focused,
25:51that epinephrine is released by dilating
25:53your your field of gaze, so-called
25:54panoramic vision. But, the other side of
25:56limbic friction is important, too. If
25:58you are too tired and you can't focus,
26:01well, then it's going to be impossible
26:02to even get to the starting line, so to
26:05speak, for engaging in neural plasticity
26:07through incremental learning, et cetera.
26:09So, in that case, there are other
26:10methods that you can do to wake yourself
26:12up. The best thing you should do is get
26:13a good night's sleep, but that's not
26:14always possible, or use a NSDR non-sleep
26:17deep rest protocol. But, if you've
26:19already done those things, or you're
26:21simply exhausted for whatever other
26:23reason, then there are other things that
26:27I often get asked about, like sure, a
26:28cup of coffee or super oxygenation
26:30breathing, which means inhaling more
26:31than exhaling on average in a in a
26:34breathing bout. Now, we're sort of
26:35getting toward the realm of like how you
26:36could trick your nervous system into
26:37waking up. And if you bring more oxygen
26:40in by making your inhales deeper and
26:41longer, you will become more alert.
26:43You'll start to actually deploy
26:44norepinephrine if you breathe very fast.
26:46So, there are things that you can do to
26:48move up or down this so-called autonomic
26:51arousal arc. And what you want to ask
26:54before you undergo any learning bout is
26:57how much limbic friction am I
26:58experiencing? Am I too alert and I want
27:01to be calmer, or am I too calm and too
27:03sleepy and I want to be more alert?
27:05You're going to need to
27:07engage in behaviors that bring you to
27:09the starting line in order to learn.
27:12There are other things that you can do
27:14in order to then learn better and faster
27:17besides incremental learning, and those
27:19center on the vestibular system. Why the
27:21vestibular system to access neural
27:23plasticity? Well, we have a hardwired
27:26system for balance,
27:28and here's how it works in as simple
27:30terms as I can possibly come up with.
27:33As we move through
27:36space,
27:37or even if we're stationary, your brain
27:39doesn't really know where your body is
27:41except when through that proprioceptive
27:43feedback. The main way it knows is
27:46through three planes of movement that we
27:48call pitch, which is like nodding. So,
27:51if I nod like this, that's pitch.
27:54Then there's yaw, which is like shaking
27:56my head no. And then there's roll from
27:58side to side, like when a puppy looks at
28:00you like
28:02that kind of thing, okay? So, pitch,
28:04yaw, and roll. Our ears have two main
28:07roles. One is to hear, right? To
28:10perceive sound waves, or taking sound
28:12waves for perception, so-called hearing,
28:14and the other is balance or vestibular
28:16function. So, sitting in our ears are
28:18these semicircular canals, and they're
28:20these little tubes where these little
28:21little stones, they're actually little
28:23bits of calcium, roll back and forth
28:24like little marbles. When we roll this
28:26way, they roll this way. When I pitch,
28:29when we go from side to side, there's
28:30some that sit flat like this and they go
28:31shh shh,
28:32like marbles inside of a hula hoop. And
28:34then we have roll. There's some that are
28:36kind of at 45° to those, and it's kind
28:38of pitch, yaw, and roll. So, you okay,
28:40great. That sends signals to the rest of
28:43our brain and body that tell us how to
28:44compensate for shifts relative to
28:46gravity.
28:48I say, "Okay, well, I thought we were
28:49talking about plasticity." But, this is
28:51where it gets really, really cool.
28:53Errors
28:55in vestibular motor sensory experience,
28:59meaning when we are off balance and we
29:01have to compensate by looking at,
29:04thinking about, or responding to the
29:06world differently,
29:08cause an area of our brain called the
29:09cerebellum, it actually means mini
29:11brain, it looks like a little mini brain
29:13stuck like tucked below our our cortex
29:15in the back,
29:16cause the cerebellum to signal some of
29:19these deeper brain centers that release
29:22dopamine, norepinephrine, and
29:23acetylcholine. And that's because
29:26these circuits in the inner ear, etc.,
29:31and the cerebellum,
29:32they were designed to recalibrate our
29:35motor movements when our relationship to
29:39gravity changes, something fundamental
29:40to survival. We can't afford to be
29:42falling down all the time or missing
29:44things that we grab for or running in
29:46the wrong direction when something is
29:48pursuing us. These are hardwired
29:50circuits that tap right into these
29:52chemical pathways.
29:54And those chemical pathways are the
29:56gates to plasticity. So, I really want
29:59to spell this out clearly cuz I've given
30:00a lot of information today.
30:02The first thing is how are you arriving
30:04to the learning bout?
30:06You need to make sure your level of
30:08autonomic arousal is correct. The ideal
30:11state is going to be clear, calm, and
30:13focused, maybe a little bit more on the
30:14on the arousal level, like heightened
30:16arousal. So, understand limbic friction,
30:19understand that you can be too tired, in
30:20which case you're going to need to get
30:22yourself a little more alert, or you can
30:24be
30:25too alert and you're going to need to
30:26get yourself calmer.
30:28So, the first gate is to arrive at
30:30learning at the appropriate level of
30:32autonomic arousal.
30:33Clear and focused is best, but don't
30:36obsess over being right there. It's okay
30:38to be a little anxious or a little bit
30:39tired. Then, you want to make errors. We
30:42talked about that, and this vestibular
30:45motor sensory relationship is absolutely
30:47key
30:48if you want to get heightened or
30:50accelerated plasticity. And we talked
30:53about another feature, which is setting
30:55an a contingency. If there's a reason,
30:57an important reason for you to actually
30:59learn, even if you're making failures,
31:02the learning will be accelerated. So
31:04there's really four things that you
31:05really need to do for plasticity
31:08as an adult, and I would say that these
31:10also apply to young people,
31:12and there's an interesting kind of a
31:15thought experiment there as well, which
31:17is if you look at children,
31:20they are moving a lot in different
31:21dimensions. Whatever sport the kids are
31:23playing, or even if they don't play a
31:24sport, they tend to move in a lot of
31:27different relationships to gravity, more
31:30dimensionality to their movements, I
31:32should say, than adults. As we age, we
31:34get less good at engaging in neural
31:36plasticity. Part of that is because as
31:38we get older, we tend to get more linear
31:41and more regular about the specific
31:43kinds of movements. So you sort of have
31:45to wonder whether or not the lack of
31:46plasticity or the reduced plasticity in
31:49older individuals, which includes me,
31:53would reflect the fact that those
31:55chemicals aren't being deployed because
31:58we're not engaging in certain behaviors
32:00as opposed to we can't engage in the
32:02behaviors because the chemicals aren't
32:03being deployed. So
32:05I want to make sure that I I underscore
32:07the fact that this vestibular thing that
32:09I've been describing is a way to really
32:12accentuate plasticity. It's tapping into
32:15an inborn biological mechanism where the
32:18cerebellum has outputs to these deep
32:19brain nuclei associated with dopamine,
32:22acetylcholine, and norepinephrine.
32:24That's an kind of an amplifier on
32:26plasticity. As is high contingency. If
32:29you really need to learn conversational
32:30French to save your relationship,
32:33chances are you're going to learn it.
32:34Now, there are limits to this, of
32:35course, too. If someone puts a gun to my
32:37head and says, "Learn conversational
32:38French in the next 120 seconds."
32:41Um I think we would probably be my only
32:43response
32:44because I can't
32:46stuff in all the knowledge all at once.
32:48I mean, I think that's the dream of
32:50brain-machine interface that one will be
32:51able to download a chip into their
32:53hippocampus or cortex or some other
32:55brain structure that would allow them to
32:56download conversational French. And
32:59someday, uh we may get to that. And so,
33:02my overall goal here in this episode and
33:05with this podcast is to give you some
33:07understanding of the mechanisms and the
33:09insights into the underlying biology
33:11that allow you to tailor what these
33:15kind of foundational mechanisms are to
33:18suit your particular learning needs. So,
33:20I very much thank you for your time and
33:22attention. I know it's a lot of
33:24information, and it takes a bit of focus
33:26and attention, and certainly will
33:28trigger plasticity
33:30to learn all this information. Want to
33:32encourage you and just remind you that
33:34you don't have to grasp it all at once,
33:37that it is here archived, and that if
33:39you want to return to the information,
33:40it will still be here. And that I most
33:43of all really appreciate your interest
33:45in science. Thank you so much.

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