Huberman Lab
How to Use Exercise to Improve Your Brain’s Health, Longevity & Performance
Mon, 06 Jan 2025
In this episode, I discuss how different forms of exercise impact brain health and performance in both the short and long term. I explain how many of the positive effects of exercise on brain function occur through the action of specific neurochemicals that increase alertness. I also cover how to best time exercise and which specific types of exercise to include in your weekly routine to maximize benefits for your brain. Additionally, I explain how certain types of exercise trigger the release of a hormone from your bones called osteocalcin, as well as brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Together, these substances increase neuroplasticity and enhance learning. The positive effects of exercise on brain oxygenation, blood supply, and fuel utilization are also discussed. Listeners will learn how to design a weekly exercise program that optimizes physical fitness, brain health, longevity, and performance, along with the mechanistic logic behind those recommendations. Find show notes with articles, resources and more at hubermanlab.com. Pre-order Andrew's upcoming book, Protocols: https://go.hubermanlab.com/protocols Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Maui Nui: https://mauinui.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Exercise, Brain Health & Performance; Protocols Book 00:04:03 Sponsors: BetterHelp & Helix Sleep 00:06:55 Brain Health, Cardiovascular & Resistance Training 00:11:51 Exercise & Positive Impact on Brain Performance; Arousal 00:18:20 Learning & Arousal 00:23:18 Sponsors: AG1 & David 00:26:01 Exercise & Acute Learning 00:29:16 Tool: High-Intensity Training & Cognitive Flexibility; Over-Training 00:33:32 Long-Term Brain Health; Tool: Exercise “Snacks”, Cognitive Performance 00:36:57 Exercise, Brain & Body Energy, Adrenaline, Norepinephrine 00:44:08 Adrenal “Burnout”?; Exercise to Increase Energy, Adrenaline 00:48:20 Tool: Core, Compound Movements; Mind-Body Connection 00:53:58 Sponsor: Function 00:55:45 Bones, Osteocalcin, BDNF & Hippocampus; Tool: Jump Training 01:01:30 Exercise, Fuel, Multifactorial Pathways; BDNF & Activity 01:05:06 Lactate, Astrocytes & Brain Function; VEGF & Brain Health 01:11:17 Tools: Zone 2, High-Intensity Training, Time Under Tension Training 01:19:54 Sponsor: Maui Nui 01:21:37 Tools: Time Under Tension; Explosive Jumping, Eccentric Control Training 01:25:30 Injury & Exercise, Illness 01:28:09 Sleep; Injury, Sleep-Deprivation & Exercise 01:33:51 SuperAgers, Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex, Grit & Persistence 01:42:04 Tool: Embrace Challenges; Deliberate Cold Exposure, Rope Flow 01:47:39 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures
Full Episode
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
Today, we are discussing exercise and brain health, which includes brain longevity and brain performance, our ability to learn new information over long periods of time and indeed into old age. Today, we are going to discuss how different forms of exercise,
resistance training, cardiovascular training of both long, medium and short duration can be used to improve the way that your brain functions acutely, meaning immediately in the minutes and hours and the day that you do that exercise, as well as in the long term, in the days, weeks and months after you perform that exercise. And of course,
if you're exercising regularly, the effects of exercise on brain health and performance compound over time, making you better able to learn things, better able to retain information from the past, and indeed to expand your brain's capacity to learn new types of information in new ways.
In researching today's episode, I quickly came to realize that the number of studies that have explored the relationship between exercise, brain performance, and brain health as well as the range of different types of exercise that have been explored in that context is extremely vast.
There are literally tens of thousands of studies on this topic, as well as meta analyses and reviews, all of which point to positive effects of doing exercise of various types on brain health and performance. Within those many, many studies, you'll find many, many different exercise protocols that lead to improvements in brain performance and longevity.
So the goal of today's episode is to synthesize that vast amount of information into a logical framework that simplifies it and clarifies it and places it within the context of specific mechanisms, both neurobiological mechanisms and endocrine-based mechanisms that together
can very well explain the data on how exercise impacts brain health and longevity, such that by the end of today's episode, you'll have both some specific recommendations about how to use exercise for sake of brain health and performance that I believe will be new to most of you, as well as the ability to think about the mechanisms and the logical framework that wraps around this incredibly large literature on exercise and brain performance so that you can customize your exercise program on the basis of how much time you have available,
your specific age, your health status, and the specific types of brain changes that you might be seeking through the use of exercise.
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