Andrew Huberman, Ph.D: The Practical Science of Living Healthy
EPISODE 213
Do you want to sleep better, reduce stress and build a tremendous workout program? Yes! Then this is the episode for you. We dive into the universe of Andrew Huberman, PhD from Standford University. We will break down the practical science of living healthily.
"Positive thinking is not about being delusional. Instead, it's about learning how to take control of internal processing and knowing it'll shape your external environment." Andrew Huberman, PhD
Runsheet
INTRO
Andrew introduces the show with a story that changed Andrew Huberman's life
Find your motivation (3m44)
STARTING THE DAY
Andrew gives us a tip on how to start (and end) every day
How to Feel Energized and Sleep Better With One Morning Activity (4m29)
HOW TO DO IT
Andrew states that not only is breathing in good for stress, but there’s a simple extension
Reduce Anxiety & Stress with the Physiological Sigh (2m32)
Andrew & Jeff Cavaliere, a world-class physical therapist, coach us to be our best physical selves
How to Build Your Weekly Workout Program (4m19)
OUTRO
Andrew talks to Jocko Willink about the value of stepping back, and having a broad field of vision in life
Detachment is the best super power (5m)
Transcript
Mike Parsons: Welcome to the Moonshots Podcast. It's episode 213. I'm your co-host, my Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark p and Freeland. Good morning, mark.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Good morning, Mike. Good morning, members, listeners, subscribers. Today we have an action packed, and Mike I think it's fair to say that this is one of the media and more scientific, perhaps, shows that we've done in recent history.
Mark Pearson Freeland: This is a big moonshots edition, isn't it today. It really
Mike Parsons: is. We're going deep, we're going evidence-based and one of my absolute favorite academic scientists because this person gives us some practical things to do, doesn't he? He
Mark Pearson Freeland: does everybody, listeners, members, Mike and the Moonshots family. Today, in episode 213, we are digging into PhD individual Dr.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Andrew Huberman, who is a neuroscientist, as well as tenure professor in Stanford, who's made a substantial amount of research into psychiatry, behavioral science. He's provided and created significant contributions to brain development, research, brain function as well as neuroplasticity. Mike, he's done quite a lot on the old noggin as well as the nervous system, hasn't he?
Mark Pearson Freeland: He's
Mike Parsons: got a lot done, that's for sure. Dr. Andrew Huberman of Stanford you've probably seen him on YouTube. You've probably heard of him. And if you haven't, doesn't matter because we're gonna introduce you to Dr. Andrew Huberman today because. Without a doubt, mark. He is the guy I've been looking for.
Mike Parsons: I want a source. If I want resilience, I go to Goins. If I want growth mindset, I go to Carol Dweck. If I want to, if I want empathy, if I want to be daring, if I want to get over myself, I go to Brene Breno, right? . If I want to go to the science of health and Wellness, this is the guy. There is nobody else because with all respect to the great guys, we've studied Mark on breathing, on sleeping on all of these specific areas, the catches, they're very specific.
Mike Parsons: Think about Patrick McGowen on the Oxygen Advantage. Great, but it's just about breath. I need somebody, I need a go-to playbook and I need to know the science and the evidence behind how to be at my best, mentally, physically, and even a little bit spiritually according to the science and the answer at that point.
Mike Parsons: At the end of this rainbow is Dr. Andrew Huberman, and he has so much to offer us because not only does he know the evidence, he knows the reports, he knows the surveys, the studies. He can put them into these simple actions. It's it is like the mad scientist has met James. Clear. Throw in a little David Goggins.
Mike Parsons: I don't know. It's so many people on one. Here's the answer to health and wellness in the modern age. Dr. Andrew Huberman. Mark, I cannot wait to dig into this show.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I thi I think you're totally right. He's not only gonna introduce us and take us through advice around our bodies, but also around our habits and behaviors.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Like you just said, there's work and evidence. We, James Clear that Andrew Huberman, really helps us understand from more of a scientific perspective, but also the idea of perceptions. There's a little bit of mindset in there. I think we're gonna have an all in one package today. Mike, all
Mike Parsons: in one.
Mike Parsons: Sounds great. If this is the go-to for your health, Your wellness and knowing that it's really science and evidence based. Mark, I'm ready to get stuck into the world of Dr. Andrew Huberman. Where do you want to kick off this adventure?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Let's kick off with Dr. Andrew Huberman. Introduce us to the show, but by breaking down a little bit of a story that he experienced when he was a kid back in the early nineties, and how eventually it led him into the direction that he's working in nowadays and how it inspired and found his motivation.
Andrew Huberman: I was observing what was happening. And then after that, that July 4th 94 incident was, I realized this is it, it's now or never. It really was one of those moments, you hear about those moments, but it was me realizing I'm, I'm living in this squat. I've got a pet ferret.
Andrew Huberman: My girlfriend's gone. She broke up with me. She was smart enough to break up with me, I'm getting in fights. I'm working at a bagel shop. I'm barely make ends meet. And at that point, I just made the decision. I just said, okay, look, I'm. I'm not gonna be a professional athlete. I think I'm pretty good at memorizing things.
Andrew Huberman: I think I have an interest in people. I'm going to just decide, I just decided to do school. I decide that was the track. So some people picked the military because it's a, if you, you know what to expect, at least in terms of the, the passages that you're gonna go through.
Andrew Huberman: And for me, that was school. And so I hadn't 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. Yeah, I think I was really afraid. I think I was like, and I, and these days, cause my lab studies fear and I get into this whole thing around mindsets and people always ask me like, is it better to do something from a place of love or fear?
Andrew Huberman: Depends. Yeah. And at that point, fear was the best motivator for me. and 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, there was one professor in particular who kind took note. He was like, oh, you seemed really interested in this stuff.
Andrew Huberman: And I was like, yeah, cuz he was teaching me about depression, schizophrenia, neurochemicals. . I thought it was totally turned on by the world of neuroscience. It didn't, it wasn't even called neuroscience back then. But this one guy, Harry Carlisle, who was teaching me about thermal regulation and how the brain works and how receptors in the skin relate to perceptions in the mind and.
Andrew Huberman: And and he also had a deep sensitivity to mental disease. And I'd seen a lot of that, I'd seen a lot of depression and anxiety in my own family. I'd had a friend commit suicide. Another friend becomes schizophrenic. I think he's still walk in the Mission District of San Francisco now.
Andrew Huberman: . Scenes of friends become addicts. And so here was some, someone explaining that there's actually a, an underlying basis for this, and I just poured myself into it, is
Mike Parsons: that the same guy who who you know, would smoke underneath the vacuum
Mark Pearson Freeland: hood and stuff like that, like a bit of an iconoclasts.
Andrew Huberman: Yeah, he was amazing. So he was a favorite teacher of many students. Uhhuh. . But if you could get into his lab, then you were one of the chosen ones, and so he was like the perfect mentor at the perfect time for you. Yeah. So he used to drink coffee in lab, which you're not supposed to do.
Andrew Huberman: He used to smoke cigarettes in lab. And in the fume hood. And they used to come and yell at him and he would do it anyway. And I thought, this guy's, he doesn't even know what it is, he's punk rocker. He doesn't even even know. And he gave me an opportunity to work in his lab.
Andrew Huberman: And then 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 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, left us all this kind of thing.
Andrew Huberman: And I realized if I didn't do this, if I didn't take this opportunity, I, it was gonna be the most foolish thing ever. What am I gonna do? Spite my, my parents bec, it was, 20 years old at that point. So I just made the decision, I'm gonna be get a PhD, I'm gonna become a professor, I'm gonna get tenure, I'm gonna be like this guy, this guy who has looked like he had a pretty good life to me.
Andrew Huberman: And so that's pretty much how I spent the, the last 25 years of my life,
Mike Parsons: 25 years helping us, mark, get to the bottom of the mind body relationship using science and it's evidence-based. And how wonderful is it to hear the challenges that someone like Hoberman. As in his own right as an expert, that it wasn't all like home runs and easy pickings.
Mike Parsons: He went through his own challenges. He had his re moment of realization, his tipping point. Like David Goggins being the pest controller and severely overweight, like so many people that we have studied, he found the capacity to choose to shoot for the moon which is exactly what we do on this podcast to try and be the best version of yourself to work it out.
Mike Parsons: So what a perfect start to the Homan show.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. To, to kicking us off into this way of thinking. I believe that story is a great demonstration, Mike, of the type of drive that an individual like Huberman and from a broader perspective of any sort of moon shotter, because they've got to that rock bottom moment and they've had the ability to realize it.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I'm living in a banham home, I've got this ferret, and he decides, I've noticed that I've got a particularly good. Or I've noticed that I'm quite interested in such and such, the ability to not get too bogged down and feel, oh, sorry, poor me and so on. I'm making excuses.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Instead, he's able to turn around and start doing a lot of hard work, and obviously where he is now is pretty well documented and established. I think what's also quite interesting is the admission of this individual who inspired him, and that reminds me of a lot of the moonshots that we've heard from where you are rubbing shoulders with individuals that you wanna learn from.
Mark Pearson Freeland: You choose the company that you wanna hang out with because they inspire you to greatness. They teach you something when you're hanging out with them. And I quite like this admission again from Huberman here, calling out this professor who's, smoking under the hood, the extraction hood, and so on.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Being a although maybe not a mentor as he would call it, but an individual that he admired that then inspired him to go out and continue learning to stay true to the path and so on, I think is another great little extension to that breakdown of Hoberman's 1994, moment of realization, .
Mike Parsons: I think we all have those and I think one of one, if you are listening to the show right now and you're thinking, oh, haven't had a moment of realization for a little while how about this?
Mike Parsons: You can become a member of the Moonshots podcast. You can actually get access to our Moonshots Master series, which is exclusively for our members, mark. I think that is a very exciting proposition, but I. Before we talk about how you can do that, we should tip the hat of course, to those that already have become members of the Moonshots podcast.
Mike Parsons: That's right.
Mark Pearson Freeland: The membership keeps on growing the family of moonshots learners who are joining us every week and every month and learning out loud with us, include. First of all, our individuals who've been with us for well over a year now, Mike, Bob, John, Terry, Marlin, Kenmar, Marjan, and Connor, Yasmin, Lisa, Sid, and Mr.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Bonjour, all of whom have been with us for over a year. Well
Mike Parsons: done, right? Mr. Bonjour finally gets. The the anniversary mention. Well done. Mr. Bonk. Yeah. Bonjour.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mr. Bonjour, welcome to the Annual Club, but short on his heels. Include Paul and Berg, cowman and David, Joe, crystal, Ivo, and Christian. Sam, Kelly, Barbara and Andre, Matthew, Eric Abbey and Chris.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Deborah and Lassie. Steve and Craig, Javier, Daniel, Andrew and Ravi. Yvette and l gv. Karen and Raul, pj, Nico, Ola and Ingram, Dirk, Emily, Harry, and Karthik, Vanatta, Vira, Marco and Sund, jet, Pablo, Roger, and our brand new member, Steph as well, who's joined us recently. Thank you so much, Steph, for joining this illustrious crowd of members who are joining us from all over the globe, learning out loud with us week in, week out.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And as you say, Mike have the added benefit of getting access to. The Monthly Master series.
Mike Parsons: Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to become a member, if you wanna cross the Rubicon and choose for being the best version of yourself, head over to Moonshots ao, become a member. You get so many goodies, but most of all, you get Luna powered at Good Karma, and you're gonna need that so you get a good night's sleep because after a good night's sleep, you can wake to the morning, you can rise and be the best version of yourself.
Mike Parsons: And we have a clip from Dr. Andrew Homan telling us how we can feel energized when we awake from our sleep.
Andrew Huberman: I wake up in the morning and I want to reach for my phone, but I know that even if I were to crank up the brightness on that phone screen, it's not bright enough to trigger that cortisol spike and for me to be at my most alert and focus throughout the day and to optimize my sleep at night.
Andrew Huberman: So what I do is I get out of bed and I go outside, and if it's a bright, clear day and the sun is low in the sky, or the sun is, starting to get overhead, what we call low solar angle, then I know. Getting outside at the right time. If there's cloud cover and I can't see the sun, I also know I'm doing a good thing because it turns out, especially on cloudy days, you want to get outside and get as much light energy or photons in your eyes.
Andrew Huberman: But let's say it's a very clear day and I can see where the sun is. I do not need to stare directly into the sun. If it's very low in the sky, I might do that because it's not going to be very painful to my eyes. However, if the sun is a little bit brighter and a little bit higher in the sky, sometimes it could be painful to look at.
Andrew Huberman: So the way to get this sunlight viewing early in the day is to look toward the sun. If it's too bright to look at directly, then don't do that. You just look toward it, but not directly at it. It's absolutely fine to blink. In fact, I encourage you to blink whenever you feel the impulse to blink.
Andrew Huberman: Never look at any light, sunlight or otherwise. That's so bright that it's painful to look at cuz you can damage your eyes. But for this morning, sunlight viewing it's best to not wear sunglasses. That's right. To not wear sunglasses, at least for this morning. Sunlight Viewing it is absolutely fine to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses, corrective lenses.
Andrew Huberman: In fact, those will serve you well in this practice where this tool, because they will focus the light onto your neural retina and onto those melanopsin, intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells. If your eyeglasses or contact lenses have UV protection, that's okay. There's so many different wavelengths of light coming from the sun and they are bright enough that they will trigger the mechanisms that you want triggered at this early.
Andrew Huberman: Time of day, so try and get outside. Ideally, within the first five minutes of waking, or maybe it's 15 minutes, but certainly within the first hour after waking, I wanna share with you three critical things about this tool of morning sunlight viewing. First of all, this is not some woo biology thing. This is grounded in the core of our physiology.
Andrew Huberman: There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of quality peer reviewed papers showing that. Light viewing early in the day is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness throughout the day, and it has a powerful positive impact on your ability to fall and stay asleep at night. So this is really the foundational power tool for ensuring a great night's sleep and for feeling more awake during the day.
Andrew Huberman: Second of all, if you wake up before the sun is out, you can and probably should flip on artificial lights in your internal home environment or apartment or wherever you happen to live. If your goal is to be awake, right? If you wake up at four in the morning and you need to be awake, then turn on artificial lights.
Andrew Huberman: Once the sun is out, however, once the sun has risen, then you still want to get outside and view sunlight. Some of you will wake up before the sun comes out, and if you're asking whether or not turning on artificial lights can replace sunlight at those hours, unfortunately the answer is no unless you have a very special light.
Andrew Huberman: We'll talk about what kind of light the bright artificial lights in your home. Are not, I repeat, are not going to be sufficiently bright to turn on the cortisol mechanism and the other wake up mechanisms that you need early in the day. The diabolical twist, however, is that those lights in your home or apartment, or even on your phone are bright enough to disrupt your sleep if you look at them too late at night or in the middle of the night.
Andrew Huberman: So there's this asymmetry in our retinal, our eye biology and in our brains biology, whereby early in the day, right around waking, you need a lot of light, a lot of photons, a lot of light energy, and artificial lights generally just won't accomplish what you need them to accomplish. But at night, even a little bit of artificial light can really mess up your circadian, your 24 hour clocks and all these mechanisms that we're talking about.
Andrew Huberman: So if you wake up before the sun is out and it's still dark, please turn on as many bright artificial lights as you possibly can or need, but then get outside once the sun is out.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, we are hearing some crazy practical tips from Dr. Huberman here, aren't we? How great is this when we can actually hear scientifically backed productivity hacks and advice for when we're trying to either wake ourselves up, which obviously we all do every single day, as well as go back to bed.
Mike Parsons: I think the, you get uber mantis best. You get the data, you get the facts, but you also get the practical tips. And this is one that I hadn't heard until we started researching this show. I'm like, I gotta get myself outside as soon as possible. But equally, we hear the data behind why you need to turn off all your devices and screens well before you go to bed if you want to calm the system down in order to have a good night's
Mark Pearson Freeland: sleep.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Right? . Yeah, exactly. And this really stems down to some of the work that Huberman does over at Stanford. They really look into the way that, obviously the brain works as I mentioned earlier, as well as repairing brain circuits. But right now they're digging a lot into vision. So everything that we're hearing in that clip with regards to advice around waking ourselves up is totally founded in Hoberman's science and the research that he's doing.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, for me, I was exactly the same. This was not a. Piece of advice or recommendation that actually I'd really understood or heard of before. And I was quite pleased because it then encouraged me to really embrace those moments in the morning when I have to get outside, walk the dog as soon as I get up.
Mark Pearson Freeland: It was a reminder or a reimbursement, I suppose to say, yes, make sure you go and do it. Don't find an excuse to cut it short. Stay out as much as you can. Enjoy that sunshine. Get that not only fresh air, but more importantly that brightness that then triggers your body to wake up.
Mike Parsons: Yeah, I'm thinking to make this work in my routine, like I'm thinking like a, like I did this morning, like a 20 minute walk, no sunglasses.
Mike Parsons: I, I literally just walked to the park.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Around the park
Mike Parsons: came back home. And that's how I'm trying to process it. And maybe to make it a little bit easier, what we can do is, we can pick a little bit of content if that's appropriate to listen to on the way. So I was actually listening to the clips for this show and took a nice walk.
Mike Parsons: It was 20 minutes and got back and ready to record. That was a very pleasant way to start the day. How are you gonna incorporate this? I think you might have the advantage, I think you have a dog, so that kind of means you gotta get out of the house. But how are you gonna make this work, mark?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think for those days when I don't have the dog, so let's say I'm on a business. Let's use that as an example. , I don't have the the reason to get the dog outside take it for a walk and so on. Instead, I've, I'm under my own power of motivation to get out there. I think it's very similar to yourself.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think the key thing as Huberman points out is don't wear sunglasses. Don't hide away or shy away from that brightness, even if it feels a little bit empowering. Sorry a little bit disabling instead, go out thinking you are absorbing that, that energy, but also brining yourself up, brining a day, getting yourself ready for the stimulus that you're gonna run into.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think you're right. Turning on a good podcast for me, music is a great motivator. Obviously. We'll, we've spoken about exercise before and we'll speak about it again later in the show. Doing some exercise in the morning is pretty essential for me. I think you're right. Just a nice calm 20 minutes outside just.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Getting that blood pumping similar like you we would with a cold shower. Just something that sort of Exactly. Stimulates, yeah, exactly. Stimulates all of the synapses in your brain to start turning on. What I thought was quite interesting was also this admission around bright lights inside not being sufficient.
Mark Pearson Freeland: For me, I've probably been under the assumption that it is okay to turn on bright lights, particularly if you are in countries like the UK where it's a little bit dark in the mornings and so on. I think what's great now that we are learning from Dr. Erman is you can do that, but you should pair it with an experience outside as quickly as possible once the sun does rise or once the clouds do
Mike Parsons: pass.
Mike Parsons: Yes. That you make a good point here because the thing for me is as listeners probably know, we have these elaborate morning rituals to wake us up and stretch journal, you name it, breathing exercises. But the thing about the transformation about getting outside.
Mike Parsons: Relatively early around sunrise. I find it to be quite a natural thing. The desire to be up and about outside a, as the sun dawns on the day feels a very naturally good to me. But here's the thing I'm fighting against is I'm so keen to crack into my day that I look at the laptop. Oh, yes.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Sitting there.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. And I'm like, oh, even like a 20 minute walk in the morning is deferring, jumping into my work. Do you ever have this moment where you're like, oh, I just want to crack in. And so the idea of getting outside is basically an interruption or a delay of getting into your work. And I find it hard.
Mike Parsons: Sometimes push through that. Do you ever have this kind of experience?
Mark Pearson Freeland: It's funny you say that. It's what I do every day. In fact, I'm very guilty and you look I'm guilty about, and we'll talk about the end of the day routine in a minute as well, . But I'm pretty guilty, Mike, of doing the exact same thing.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I'll come in, obviously working from home a lot. I'll either open up the personal laptop or the work laptop. I wanna check what's taken place overnight. And I'll often do that as one of the first things I do, before making a cup of coffee, before getting outside, it's something that I've almost fall into the habit of doing.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And that contradicts exactly what Dr. Hoberman's advising us here. Likewise, or simultaneously at the end of the day trying to go to bed. Sometimes I'm pretty guilty of only catching up on messages. When I'm starting to unwind for the day, it'll be something I put off until I'm ready to rest.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And actually that's completely contradictory to what Dr. Oman's telling us here about the light, which is not a new idea that, we've run into on the Moonshot show before. Of course, we know from people like Cal Newport, leave your phone in another room. And I know that's something that you already do.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes. I think both of these admissions coming from an individual like Dr. Huberman, it's a stark reminder to me about how I should take more ownership over these practices that I have. Both of the end, but also the start of the day in order to become this best version of myself, somebody who is not only productive, but also relaxed and creative, in a mindset where I can absorb and be collaborative with other people, I think stems from the way that you set yourself up.
Mark Pearson Freeland: It
Mike Parsons: really is like I the truth in the idea that a good night's sleep, waking up fresh in the morning is based on your sleep. And a good sleep is based on how you prepare. And without getting too off track here, what I discover have discovered, particularly through using the aura ring, is the two or three hours prior to getting into the bed are crucial.
Mike Parsons: Don't eat dinner too close to bedtime. Don't look at screens too close to bedtime, but also literally go into a. Rest state, let the body simmer down. This, all of this is becoming more and more self-evident to me about engineering the good sleep, which is about engineering a good wake up, which is about feeling alert and ready for the day.
Mike Parsons: and I'll tell you one other thing I, with my best friends we're all now in our late forties and laughing at how staying in good health is becoming such a big project. , we're not in our twenties anymore. And I will say to you, mark, like what you will begin to realize is that the importance of these habits and attention to them.
Mike Parsons: It's so damn important cuz it compounds. Good habits mean you consecutively have good night's sleep, which means you have a good day, which means you have a good sleep and it builds. But inversely, if we don't follow the insights that are in the work of Dr. Andrew Huberman and many others about healthy habits for wellness, for our health, then the deterioration begins and unpacking it.
Mike Parsons: It's if you wait way too much over the Christmas break, getting off those kilograms can be hard work. And like in life, if you don't start good practices early, as you get older, it gets harder to incorporate those new habits, those habits of success, of wellness and good spirit. But Mark, I can tell you there is one thing scientifically proven in the land of woowoo.
Mike Parsons: That will help you and that is going into your Apple Podcast app and giving us a rating or a review or going into your Spotify app and giving us a rating. Cuz, mark, I'm looking here and we have listeners on YouTube and many other places, but the main places that our listeners find themselves is in Spotify, in the Apple podcast app.
Mike Parsons: Now, without creating a race here, mark, because this is all about balance on this show today, particular, we've got 37 ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts, which is pretty good. But we have 379 on Spotify. This is a call out to all the Apple Podcast listeners. If you are out there, we need your love because those Spotify guys and gals are like, they're living a lot of feedback for us giving us a lot of love, but we don't want the Apple crew to be left behind, do we Matt?
Mark Pearson Freeland: We don't want to prioritize subconsciously Spotify in of course. We wanna make sure that our Apple Podcast listeners are getting everything that they deserve. So please, apple Podcast listeners, feel free to pop in and leave us a rating or review if you are enjoying learning out loud with us every week, because it really does not only make a difference for our little game of Spotify versus Apple Podcast, but it also helps us get into the ears and the devices of listeners from around the world.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And it's fair to say, Mike, that we are really reaching all four corners of the globe. And when we do hear. From our listeners, from exotic places around the world, when you leave us reviews or in effect, you just get in touch with hello moonshots.io. We love hearing from all of you and it really demonstrates to us that the world enjoys le listening and learning out loud.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And this is exactly what we're trying to do on this show. So please pop into Spotify as well as Apple Podcasts. Leave us those ratings and a review if you're on the Apple Podcast, and we'll see where we go to over the next couple of weeks. Mike,
Mike Parsons: guaranteed by the Institute of Woowoo that this will bring you peace and calm.
Mike Parsons: And if that doesn't work well, why don't you just have a listen to Andrew Huberman, who has a lot of thoughts on the subject.
Andrew Huberman: Billions of people suffer from stress and there are tools to combat stress that involve things like meditation, breath work. Good nutrition, good social connections, and avoiding all bad things in life.
Andrew Huberman: And while those are powerful, the problem is they require that people step away from the stress-inducing activity. By contrast, my lab and other laboratories have been very interested in developing tools that allow us to push back on stress. In other words, feel more calm in real time, meaning without having to disengage from the stress-inducing activity.
Andrew Huberman: The best way that I am aware to do that is called the physiological sigh. A physiological sigh is a pattern of breathing that involves two inhales, followed by an extended exhale. Physiological sighs were discovered in the 1930s as a pattern of breathing that people go into spontaneously when they're in claustrophobic environments or in deep sleep.
Andrew Huberman: When there's a buildup of a gas called carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, carbon dioxide triggers the impulse to breathe. There are neurons in the brain that know when carbon dioxide levels have gotten too high, and when the levels get too high, they trigger. Inhale and exhale, or double inhale and exhale.
Andrew Huberman: Now you can do physiological size voluntarily. Anytime you're feeling too stressed and you want to feel more calm, you do it like this.
Andrew Huberman: So it's a double inhale, and typically the first inhale is longer than the second, but the second one is still important to do, and then a very long extended exhale. Typically, both inhales are through the nose and the exhale is through the mouth. That's the most effective way to do the physiological sigh.
Andrew Huberman: However, you can't breathe through your nose or your mouth for whatever reason. Do it all through your mouth or all through your nose. The second inhale is really important because your lungs are not just two big bags of air. They're two big bags of air with lots of little sacks, millions of sacks. And if you were to lay out those sacks, their volume is as big as a tennis court, and that allows both the intake of more oxygen, but also the offload of carbon dioxide.
Andrew Huberman: So when you do the double inhale, it reinflates any of these little sacks that have collapsed. And in doing so, it allows you to offload more carbon dioxide. So if you're feeling stressed in any circumstance, inhale twice through the nose and then exhale long through the mouth if you want, you can repeat it a second or even a third time.
Andrew Huberman: But typically just one or two, maybe three physiological size are sufficient to bring your level of stress and alertness down very fast and allow you to feel more calm.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, I nearly missed the pickup from that clip because I was doing the physiological sign myself. Double breath in. Double breath.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Thin. Long exhale out. This is a great brand new idea on the Moonshot Show. We've obviously spoken about breathing as well as the idea of trying to bring a little bit of calm into a key moment during your day. But I think this is a really interesting extension to this concept of breath work.
Mark Pearson Freeland: We've just released obviously the oxygen advantage. Again, there's a lot of research around it, but this idea for me wasn't something that I was necessarily aware of before. Dr. Huberman revealed it through this clip, and it reminds me. The I suppose the science that exists behind this physiological moment in my day, whereby my body is ready for this fight or flight response, whereby when we were, caveman with predators and so on, it was a substantial thing where I'd need to run away.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Nowadays, obviously my levels of stress are different. There'll be emails, there'll be notifications. Maybe it'll be a stress over how much sleep I'm getting at. Whether I'm waking up correctly, there's many different forms of anxiety and stress that impacts us each day. What I like about this very Practical Science Act tip is just how easy it is to do at any moment of the day, and it can be as effective with just one rotation, one circuit.
Mark Pearson Freeland: The
Mike Parsons: crazy thing is we're we've had already two like power tips, power habits that would make James Clear, proud of us, right? right now. That's right. The one is getting outta bed and getting outside as quick as possible, getting a bit of sunlight. There's double breath in to reduce anxiety and stress. Wow.
Mike Parsons: And you can already hear as well, without doubt, just how comprehensively Huberman knows his subject. He has really done the work on the studies. He really has the evidence behind these things. I would say Mike, specific to breath work, we obviously did a whole show on the power of breath. If I remember it right, it was James Nester, wasn't it?
Mike Parsons: James Nester?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes, that's correct. Yep. Yep.
Mike Parsons: So here's the thing, like the principle behind what Andrew is talking about and what we've done with James Nester and what I've done in my own research is that fundamentally, if you are experiencing some stress, some anxiety, and you want to get back to an even keel here's a simple one.
Mike Parsons: Get out of your seat. Leave the computer, go for a walk. Don't listen to anything. Don't watch anything. Just walk and walk. Slowly, get outside. That's a really good one. Yeah. Specifically to breath though, here's the. Whatever you breathe in terms of for how long and how much you need to breathe out for longer.
Mike Parsons: Because effectively when you're breathing in, you're filling the body with air, you are increasing the heart rate. And when you're exhaling, pushing all that air out and you are slowing the heart rate, this was the big aha for me. So a lot of people like, and one of my favorites is what they call 4, 7, 8 breathing, four in seven, hold eight out.
Mike Parsons: For me, it is a sublime experience. Even the hold feels great, . So whatever you are looking for, whether it is a little less stress, a little less anxiety, or just wanna cool the jets, as I always talk about, Breath is a powerful one. And for those of you who are listening to the show right now, and maybe during your workday you notice a little bit of an elevated heart rate.
Mike Parsons: Or if you ever take time to notice and experience quite shallow breathing, they are often signs that your body is going through some sort of stress. And it might not be like stress about work. It could be like lack of good breath. Could even be just you are exhausted and you're not present.
Mike Parsons: There's all sorts of things that could be going on. But whether you are using the huberman approach of two in one out, or you're using the 4 78, all of these, just Google them and we'll have links in the show notes at moonshots. Oh io. The key here is what Andrew is talking about is breathing in.
Mike Parsons: Is always something that increases your heart rate, and that's why it's so crucial that the exhale is always long, longer, and slower. And that's what really starts to reset the system and to cool down. And there are so many variations. Mark, have you heard of like box breathing where it's 3 33 and there's all these different tempos.
Mike Parsons: It's really
Mark Pearson Freeland: cool isn. Yeah we've dug into 33 3 as well on the show, and I think that's a very interesting one. I think we even covered another form of breathing, perhaps with Yoko, from an army perspective, from a Navy perspective, right? There's so many benefits, whether you are under incredible intense stress or maybe you're just feeling a little bit short of breath like you've just said.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, another thing for me that I try and do, and I suppose it's a similar insight to just getting up and walking around, is try to elongate my body a little bit, because what happens probably naturally during my day is I'll lean forward a little bit while I'm working on the computer. Yes. And if I'm doing that for a little bit too long, so I start to notice either I, I'm a little bit short of breath perhaps, and I think that's because my body is caved over, so therefore it's not getting as much, it's the shallow breathing element.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Good inside.
Mike Parsons: That's a really that's really good because you are right, we are not actually designed to sit like we do for eight hours. We we did that fabulous show on flexibility and stretching and, we start we come into this world as people that are born to walk and hunt and then we end up sitting like folded.
Mike Parsons: That's, and no wonder that's right. We all have lower back problems. So apart from doing something good for your hips and lower back you're right. Like when I'm put my desk in Stan mode, oh my gosh, it feels so good. It's gonna be weird, Matt, but I feel more powerful. I feel more stronger when I do standing work than when I do sitting work.
Mike Parsons: Does that, yeah. Can you relate to
Mark Pearson Freeland: that actually I do. And The extension I could build on that is the idea, and it's gonna sound a little bit meta, Mike, but the idea that you are grounded, and this was something that I was introduced to actually when I was a, a kid, probably less than 13, I was probably about 10 years old.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And it was a drama teacher who said, when you are on the stage and you are projecting your voice and you are feeling a little bit nervous, you wanna stand powerfully. You wanna have both your feet flat on the ground rather than, when you're sometimes waiting in a line and you're jumping from foot to foot, leaning on one hip and so on, instead at both feet planted, you are strong foundation.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That triangle will then give you the confidence to go out and project your voice as well as your point far more. Eloquently and cohesively than if you are perhaps, leaning to one side. Maybe the element here, and going back to the standing desk example, is because we are standing up straight, we're inhaling better.
Mark Pearson Freeland: , we're exhaling better, and therefore that's contributing towards this idea of confidence and feeling more relaxed. But even I think the element or the the outcome is exactly the same, isn't it? You're feeling a little bit calmer, a little bit more in control of whatever the project or work that you're trying to do is just by simply either standing or at least trying to expand yourself in order to take deeper, more substantial breaths that then, again, similar to Roger Frampton, who wrote The Flexible Body the book you were referencing.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Is we're relieving that lower back pain from sitting in chairs too long.
Mike Parsons: So check this out, mark. There's actually studies that have been done on what people call grounding or earthing, which is ha making sure that your, you take off your shoes and walk and stand and work with your shoes off is proven to reduce inflammation, pain, stress, and so forth.
Mike Parsons: So I think we're like, we're totally getting into the huberman space here, but I totally see this idea of grounding or earthing like no shoes and your feet touch the real ground. That's actually been found to have a positive. Building upon the fact that it's much better, obviously for your hips and lower back, building upon your point that you're not crunching over your lungs like we do on our modern desk.
Mike Parsons: We are putting up, some serious work here at not only reducing a di anxiety and stress with this breath work, but really throwing in a lot of those moonshots learnings. And Mark, I don't think we're quite finished with this if you will, this workout that we're doing on the body right now.
Mike Parsons: Are we?
Mark Pearson Freeland: No, that's right. We're starting to really explore this body focus. Impact that we can have and the control that we can implement for our physical selves that I think impacts therefore our unconscious or mental selves. So as an extension of that, we are next gonna hear from Dr. Erman now talking to Jeff Cavalier, who's a world class physio physical therapist who's gonna help you and I, as well as our listeners understand and go out and build our own weekly workout
Andrew Huberman: program.
Andrew Huberman: One of your mantras is if you wanna look like an athlete, train like an athlete, and I think that's something really special that sets aside what you do from what a lot of other very well qualified people do. And in terms, The use of weights and resistance, whether or not it's body weight or weights in the gym, or polys versus cardio, in terms of overall health, aesthetics and athleticism, is there a way that you could point to, the idea that maybe people should be doing, 50% resistance training and 50% cardio?
Andrew Huberman: Maybe it's 70 30, maybe it's 30, 70 and here I'm talking about the typical person who would like to maintain or maybe even. Add some muscle mass. Probably in particular areas for most people. As opposed to just overall mass, although we'll talk about that later. And people wanna maintain a relatively low body fat percentage and be in good cardiovascular health.
Andrew Huberman: What's the sort of contour of a basic program that anybody could think about as a starting place?
Jeff Cavalier: I think it's like a 60 40 split, which would be leaning towards weight training, strength and and then, the conditioning aspect would be about 40%. So if you look at it over the course of a training week, five days in a gym would be a great task.
Jeff Cavalier: And obviously not in the gym. It could be done at home, but three days strain training, Monday, Wednesday, Friday conditioning, Tuesday, Thursday, two days. It's a, it's a. Easy, roundabout way to split that up. Of course, depending upon training goals, and as you said, the aesthetic goals like that will shift dramatically.
Jeff Cavalier: But if you wanna see the benefits of both, that's probably the effective dose for strength training and the effective dose for conditioning at the bare minimum level, again, being a much better performer, conditioning wise, you're gonna wanna do more than that.
Andrew Huberman: And in terms of the duration of those workouts, what's your suggestion?
Andrew Huberman: I've been weight training for about 30 years, running for about 30 years and mainly for health and have found that if I work hard in the gym or at resistance training for more than 60 minutes or so, it's very hard for me to recover. I start getting colds, I start getting weaker from workout to workout.
Andrew Huberman: But amazingly, at least to me, if I keep those workouts to about 10 minutes, 10 minutes of warmup and 55, 0 minutes or so of really hard work for resistance training, and I keep the cardiovascular work to about 30 to 45 minutes. I feel great and I seem to make some progress, at least someplace in the workout from workout to workout.
Andrew Huberman: Yeah, I
Jeff Cavalier: mean it's, those are good numbers cuz those are numbers that we usually preach. We try to keep our workouts to an hour or less if possible. Now, depending upon the split that you're following, if you're on a total body split, there's just gonna be more that has to be done in a given amount of time.
Jeff Cavalier: That, and again, if you're training primarily for strength, that could prolong the workout. Cause the longer rest times in between sets, but in general, when you're not focused on that one aspect, but the overall health picture, then you can get the job done in, in, under an hour. And again, I always say on top of if you wanna look like an athlete, train like an athlete is, you can either train longer or you could train hard, but you can't do both.
Jeff Cavalier: And I really believe that the focus for me, I have a busy life. I have a lot of other things that I do, believe it or not. And it's like I, I want to go hard and I wanna go get out. And I find that my body also responds to that. And I think a lot of guys' bodies respond to that. And particularly as you start to get older, I think it's the length of the workout that actually causes more problems than the intensity of what you're doing, particularly if you're warmed up properly.
Jeff Cavalier: Like you said, I've found personally that my warmup has had to become more of an integral part of my workout than it ever has before. I never, I could get in the gym when I was 20 and I'm going right over. I'm doing the one set, two sets I'm in, I'm ready to go, and I never do another workout warmup set for any of the other exercises I do the rest of the day.
Jeff Cavalier: That's not the, that's not true anymore. And I found that as long as I'm willing to give myself a little bit of a warmup, the intensity is not what bothers me. I'm very much in control of the weights that I use and it doesn't bother me. But if I start to go pretty long, I start to feel achy or I start to have problems.
Jeff Cavalier: Again, depending upon age, that also plays a factor in the length. But again, I think everybody can achieve on a standard program, can achieve the results that they want within an hour.
Mike Parsons: Keeping your work workouts to an hour is actually, it sounds sure. But once you think about what it takes for a proper workout, it is a quite a limit when you think about preparing, getting your gear, stretching, warming up, doing the work, cool down, all of that kind of stuff.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. But what's really interesting is to hear both of them talk there about programmatically. First of. Want to look like an athlete. You have to train like an athlete. And I think that is the hard truth of what we just heard there. But also what you hear both with Jeff Cavalier, who's very famous from Alene X of course, and Andrew Huberman is you see how systematic their approach is talking about, I'm doing strength today, I'm doing cardio tomorrow, doing this combination.
Mike Parsons: To me, that's been the real insight for my personal workout regime. Really thinking about when am I doing strength, when am I doing cardio and when am I doing low impact cardio work. And finding the right mix of those. And then I throw into this my rate of recovery, and that's been a huge insight as well, so that I don't go too hard so that it takes, so many days for me to recover my What, where are you at with your workout program?
Mike Parsons: What have been the key decisions you've made about how you are designing it so that you can be fit and healthy whilst, ha having a wife, having a job, and all the obligations that we have at life? How have you designed it? I think you
Mark Pearson Freeland: are similar similarly to your idea around recovery.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's certainly playing much more of a role in my approach to workouts. I think. Even as recently as perhaps six months ago, I was probably pushing as much as I could with zero regard for my body being something that needed to recover. I was not aware of the time that it would perhaps take to recover from maybe a long run or a good swim or maybe a workout in a gym doing some resistance training.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Instead, what I'd notice is I feel very lethargic, maybe a bit grumpy. My body would ache the next workout or two might suffer because of it. And I never really thought too much of it because I had this, youthful ambition just to go as hard and fast as you can. But now with a little bit more education and a little bit more awareness, recovery definitely plays more into the routine or the regime that I have each week.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I feel less guilty about taking maybe a day or so to just recover, go a little bit slower. Maybe it's a lighter run than usual, something that still gets me moving, but it's a little bit more intentional. And that intentionality with regards to the systematic or programmatic scheduling of those workouts and having a varied structure is equally as important to me.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I am not necessarily someone who will plug in my diary fixed. Times when I'll work out. There are one or two events during the week that I will go and do religiously. For example, when there is a group of individuals, going for a swim or going for a run, I'll join those. But in terms of my scheduling for going to the gym, what workout I'll do, to be honest, it's not something that I've actually really got into yet.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I can see the benefit of having a good varied workout, and I try intentionally to get a good spread of different exercises and movements and so on, because at the age of mid thirties, I wanna make sure I preserve a body that can continue doing what I wanted to do. At the same time though, I think there is a little bit of a job that I can do more around scheduling in fixed times for warmups cool downs, spending time doing rowing or.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Strength workouts in the gym versus the next day. I, it's something that I can probably improve upon listening to Jeff and Andrew
Mike Parsons: in that clip. Okay, so let's double click on this and go deeper on, on this kind of training regime. Thing I use the Aing, which is O U R A or Ring and it has a score in it called the Readiness score.
Mike Parsons: And what I noticed was through studying my readiness, that if I have a really large workout and what I'm talking about is running here, 10, 15, 20 kilometers. Putting in something, pretty serious session, running for an hour or two straight is that how much my body needs to recover from that.
Mike Parsons: And so what's really interesting is I was running frequently back to back like day after day, but what I notice is a deterioration in my readiness cuz my body cannot recuperate in time before the next run. So what I've been doing is I've actually been studying the data and having. Walk days in between my run days to find the optimal amount of time between runs so that I can actually do a better run because I've had more appropriate and a better recovery because I left more time between the runs.
Mike Parsons: And it all started with a friend of mine she said to me, oh, I would never run back to back. She always had a day in between. Fast forward to today, I actually have two days between my long runs and it is really interesting. I've been tracking my readiness scores on the walk days and the readiness scores rise back up to like out of a hundred index.
Mike Parsons: I get back towards the nineties. I do a big run and the readiness after a big run. For example I ran 14 ks. It went back all the way down to a 76. I ran before that another big 14 K run. It went down to 72. So here's the interesting thing. I ran shorter. I ran 11 ks on a different day, and my readiness only dropped to 79.
Mike Parsons: So by studying the data from the A ring, I've been actually able to redesign my workout program. So it's run two days, walk, run again, and I incorporate some resistance work and stretching every day. But that's how I've designed it. And I . When I first started running in 2020, ma, I was just running every day.
Mike Parsons: And I just went as fast as I could and I then realized I need to vary the run and I need to create time between the runs. This is a whole way of saying learn. Measure how you work out and improve upon it. And the beauty of it, mark, is that when I go for a big run, I've often primed my readiness, my rest so that I can really get after it.
Mike Parsons: And rather than what was happening is feeling, oh, I'm pretty knackered, but I'm gonna be Goggins like and keep going. Exactly. Yep. And you've gotta find what works for
Mark Pearson Freeland: you, don't you? You've gotta find out what works for you. And I think that takes a little bit of practice, a little bit of admission, that we all need to learn from other individuals, such as Dr.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Huberman and also the idea of being able to take a step back, take a step back from what you're doing right here, right now, and instead take a moment to maybe it's looking at the data, maybe it's looking at the bigger picture. And Mike, we have just one more clip for today's show where we're gonna hear from Dr.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Erman. And let's be honest, another Moonshot Classic that's Yoko Willing, who's gonna both discuss the value of being able to take a step back and think about detachment being a superpower.
Andrew Huberman: What is your process for engaging detachment or for disengaging? Is it an active process or you go, I'm gonna detach from this, I'm gonna put myself in a situation that is pulling on me.
Andrew Huberman: There's this gravitational force and I'm gonna, I dunno, create some imagery in my mind of walking away from it. Do I physically walk away from it? Do I outsource it to somebody else? What are some tools for detachment? Yeah. This
Joko Willink: is one of those situations where you and I had a discussion about the science and the practical application aligned.
Joko Willink: So my original experience with detachment was, and this is one of those moments where, I said a lot of times things are just small moments over time and you make a little adjustment. This is one of those moments I, in my life and I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics where I recognized like in a moment what detachment was and how helpful it was.
Joko Willink: I'm. On an oil rig doing a training mission. My whole platoon is in a skirmish line looking at a large area of the oil rig that we're supposed to be clearing. Again, this is not combat. This is in the nineties. There's nothing going on. We're just doing training. And I'm standing in this skirmish line, and by the way, I'm the youngest and most junior guy in my platoon.
Joko Willink: And I'm standing there looking down the sight of my weapon, and I'm waiting for someone to make a call and tell us what to do. And I wait for five seconds and I wait for 10 seconds and I wait for 20 seconds and no one's saying anything. And we're waiting for a leader in my platoon to make a call to tell us what to do, tell me what to do.
Joko Willink: And finally, after 30 seconds, which seems like an eternity, I can't take it anymore. And so I take a step, like a foot, a one foot step, 12 inches. I take a step off the skirmish line. I look to my left, I look to my right, and what I see is every other guy in my platoon is staring down their weapon, staring down the sight of their weapon, which means their field of view is tiny.
Joko Willink: It's like a 20 degree field of view. You're looking down the scope of your weapon or the side of your weapon, and that's how big their field of view is. And I'm looking, I'm thinking, oh, there's my platoon commander. He's looking down the scope of the side of his weapon. There's my platoon chief. He's looking down the side of his weapon.
Joko Willink: There's my leading petty officer. He's looking down the side of his weapon. There's my assistant platoon commander. He's looking down the, so everyone in the platoon is looking down the side of their weapon, which means they all have a very narrow field division. When I take a step back and look to my left and look to my right, guess what kind of field of vision I got?
Joko Willink: I got a massive one. I can see the whole scene and I can see exactly what it is we need to do. And at that moment, look, as a new guy, you need to keep your mouth shut. You don't say anything. And I'm thinking but no one else is saying anything. So I muster up all the courage I can and I open my mouth and I say, hold left clear, right?
Joko Willink: Which is a basic tactical call. N no. This is not a patent level genius maneuver. It's just a normal call to make in a situation that we were in. I say, hold left clear, right? And I'm expecting to get slapped told, shut up, new guy. But instead everyone just repeats the call hold left clear, right hold left, clear, right?
Joko Willink: And they, we execute the maneuver and we finish the clearance of this oil rig and we'll get done. We get to the top of the oil rig, which means we clear the whole thing. We're on the hi deck at the top, and we go into a debrief. And now I'm expecting, okay, now I'm gonna get told, Hey, what were you doing?
Joko Willink: You need to keep your mouth shut. And instead the platoon chief goes, Hey, Jono, good call on the cellar deck down there. And I was yeah, that's right. But then I thought to myself, hold on a second, why? If I'm the youngest, most junior guy in this platoon, why was I able to see what we needed to do and make that call?
Joko Willink: Why did that just happen? And then I realized it was cuz I took a step back to use your term. I broadened my field of view, which allowed me to think more clearly. Cause instead of being hyper-focused and narrowly focused, I broadened my range of vision. I took a breath before I made my call, right?
Joko Willink: I had to take my, take a nice breath to, to speak clearly. And I realized that taking a step back and detaching, I got to see infinitely more than even the most experienced guys in my platoon. And I started doing it all the time. And it, I started doing it in land warfare. I started doing it in urban combat.
Joko Willink: I started doing it in all these tactical training scenarios. These are just training. This is the nineties. I started doing these training scenarios and it always allowed me to see what we needed to do. And then I started doing it, like when I was having conversations with people, I'm having a conversation with my platoon chief and I can see that he's starting to turn a little red in the face and I, we're about to argue about something.
Joko Willink: I said, oh, wait a second. I'm taking a step back looking vote. He's getting mad right now. And he's the platoon chief. Y you better just deescalate this thing real quick. And I said, Hey, you know what, chief? That sounds good. Let me go take a re let go. Re-look at the plan or whatever.
Mike Parsons: Detachment. Mark, this is something that we all need a little bit of because if we're too in the zone, if we're feeling too much emotion, our ability to make a good decision is poor.
Mike Parsons: And it shows you there's even scientific work to be done on detaching in order to have a wilder field of view.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. I love this metaphor and this visual idea that Yoko is breaking down for us. Around looking down the barrel of a site. My, more often than not, there have been times in my career where I've got so into the weeds, so focused on one particular problem that it blocks me being able to see the bigger picture.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Maybe that's one simple email. Maybe that's somebody's point of view. Maybe that's a bad phone call, whatever it might be. There's gonna be something that will crop its head and make me reevaluate or change my mind around how much, either I'm enjoying a certain activity, a certain project maybe, or it's going to stop me being able to do my best work because I'm only focused on the thing that's right here, right now.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And I think what we're hearing from Huberman as well as Yoko in that clip is the value of being able to. Look at things objectively, being able to take a step back and think I've gotta go out and do this today, but how is it laddering up to my overarching goal, my vision? Is it mattering to me as an individual?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Is it mattering to my project as a whole? Is it going to have a positive impact on those around me? Is it going to have a positive impact on the work that I'm producing for whatever it might be. And it's something that we probably fall into quite regularly, isn't it? Something where we are only going to be working on the thing that's right here in front of us, as opposed to taking a step back and looking at the whole project or the whole battlefield.
Mark Pearson Freeland: The
Mike Parsons: risk is, you get, you are so fired up that you are working on something that really matters to you, that you get too overinvested and you can't you get lost in the forest, don't you? You just dunno where you are. You're just too fired up. And if you think about it, which athletes always make the best moves.
Mike Parsons: Who always comes through with the clutch plays? It's the silent assess. And it's not the, it's not the hothead is it?
Mark Pearson Freeland: And likewise, in business, it's not necessarily gonna be the loudest person in the room who's the one to look out for or listen to. Perhaps it's the one who's a little bit quieter and who's observing, who's listening, who's learning.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That then will come up with the most insightful recommendation because they're able to listen to the whole picture before they want to say something.
Mike Parsons: So when we reflect on what we're learning from Huberman here, it really is take a breath. Wake up fresh in the morning, go out, be a happy and healthy self.
Mike Parsons: But also if you want to see clearly, make a good decisions, evaluate risks and options. This idea of detachment is simply just the capacity to step back. Second order thinking, first, principle thinking. All of the good things that we talk about here on the Moonshots podcast, these are the ways in which you can have the capacity to see a wider field of vision, see what's going on, and make better insights, better steps, better decisions.
Mike Parsons: And if you're working on your life's work, then it really matters.
Mark Pearson Freeland: It really does. And we've dug into the idea of setting objectives and missions and statements and visions in order to try and be that best version of ourselves. But it really does come down to the discipline of the habits that you put into place in order to go out and action them.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And I think Dr. Huberman is a perfect example of an individual who we've uncovered on the Moonshot Show, or at least we've explored on the Moonshot Show, that can help you and I hope our listeners and subscribers feel that little bit more energized and go out and start to work on themselves just as much as you and I.
Mike Parsons: We got so much from Hoberman today. Mark I'm actually scared to ask what's on the list for you for what is getting your attention, mark.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I'm going to intentionally. Work on probably all five of them actually. , but particularly I'm going to put into practice the physiological sigh, which is something that I haven't explored before.
Mark Pearson Freeland: , I'm going to obviously continue and really exemplify the idea of getting energized with the sun in the morning. But this detachment piece, that's not something I'm gonna forget about either. I think that's gonna be intrinsic through actioning all of these tips and tricks. I think being able to take a step back.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So what about you, Mike? I cheated there.
Mike Parsons: Y yeah, I think you picked them all. Mark . No, I think the early Morning Sunshine, that's my practical next step. That's what I'm gonna work on. And oh my gosh, I'll be checking out more of Andrew Huberman and his podcast and his work. I can't wait.
Mike Parsons: The guy's gotta produce a book, doesn't he? Mark?
Mark Pearson Freeland: He really does because there's just so much content in there for us to to keep on learning from. Absolutely. What are going well,
Mike Parsons: mark, thank you to you and thank you to our members and to our listeners too. It's been great to dig into the science of living Healthy and being well with Dr.
Mike Parsons: Andrew Huberman on Show 213. He had a remarkable story of finding his purpose in life, and he's gone on to bring us powerful thinking, evidence-based work. It starts with simple things like waking up and getting some sunshine. It talks with the psychological sigh. It talks about the absolute essence of a good, balanced workout program.
Mike Parsons: And hey, he's even got a little bit of thinking on detachment and how it can become your superpower. Do these things, and you will be living healthy and well, and you'll be doing it knowing that Dr. Andrew Huberman has done. Work the science. He's got the evidence so we can learn out loud, be the best version of ourselves, and come together here on the Moonshots podcast.
Mike Parsons: Okay, that's a wrap.