Lex Fridman Podcast
#435 – Andrew Huberman: Focus, Controversy, Politics, and Relationships
Fri, 28 Jun 2024
Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Huberman Lab Podcast. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get $350 off - LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack - AG1: https://drinkag1.com/lex to get 1 month supply of fish oil - Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial - NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour - BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/andrew-huberman-5-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Andrew's YouTube: https://youtube.com/AndrewHubermanLab Andrew's Instagram: https://instagram.com/hubermanlab Andrew's Website: https://hubermanlab.com Andrew's X: https://x.com/hubermanlab Andrew's book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3RNSIQN Andrew's book: https://hubermanlab.com/protocols-book PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (10:24) - Quitting and evolving (17:22) - How to focus and think deeply (19:56) - Cannabis drama (30:08) - Jungian shadow (40:35) - Supplements (43:38) - Nicotine (48:01) - Caffeine (49:48) - Math gaffe (1:06:50) - 2024 presidential elections (1:13:47) - Great white sharks (1:22:32) - Ayahuasca & psychedelics (1:37:33) - Relationships (1:45:08) - Productivity (1:53:58) - Friendship
The following is a conversation with Andrew Huberman, his fifth time on the podcast. He is the host of the Huberman Lab podcast and is an amazing scientist, teacher, human being, and someone I'm grateful to be able to call a close friend. Also, he has a book coming out next year that you should pre-order now called Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.
And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Eight Sleep for naps, Element for electrolytes, AG1 for nutrition, Shopify for e-commerce, NetSuite for business management software, and BetterHelp for mental health. Choose wisely, my friends.
Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just want to get in touch with me, go to alexfreedman.com slash contact. And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you must skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Asleep and it's pod for ultra.
First of all, Pod 4 is an improvement over the Pod 3, which was already awesome. 2X the cooling power. I always love it when stuff is just improving. When smartphones are improving, LLMs are improving, like jump to Claw 3.5. It's just great. And GPT-5 might be coming out soon. It's just great. It's great to see improvement.
But also there's the Ultra part, which is an extra layer that adds the base that goes between the mattress and the bed frame, and the base can control the physical position of the actual mattress. So basically you can sleep in your bed and you can also read in your bed, which is a thing that I think a lot of people like doing. I have trouble reading too much in my bed because I fall asleep.
The bed is just too nice. Anyway, go to 8sleep.com slash Lex and use code Lex to get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Element, the drink that Andrew and I consume a lot of during the episode. I drink a lot of Element almost, not almost, on every single podcast episode, that's just what I drink. I put Element in the water, I take, I have one next to me right now,
Powerade zero bottle with 28 fluid ounces, fill it up with water, put one packet of element in there, usually watermelon salt, mix it all up, put in the fridge, and about 30 minutes later, there's cold, refreshing deliciousness. But yeah, in the Texas heat, when I'm doing the long runs or hard training sessions, like I just did 10 rounds the other day,
in uh grappling no drinks i usually don't like to drink during training so afterwards you're just your body is completely dehydrated and that's such an amazing feeling to replenish it with all the electrolytes you need so especially when it's cold and delicious i love it get a sample pack for free with any purchase try it at drinkelement.com lex
This episode is also brought to you by AG1, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It's kind of hilarious how when Andrew and I hang out, how the supplementation and the diet and just our way of being is on point. There's a lot of AG1 consumed. There's a lot of element consumed. And there's a lot of ground beef or steak consumed on a regular basis.
We've been planning to run together more, but we haven't quite done that. It's mostly my fault because... Running has just been such a solo thing for me. I really don't remember the last time I ever run with anybody. I get so much into my head that I just feel like I'm even more introverted than I usually am. Like I lose myself inside my mind.
It's become such a meditative process that to do running with another person, it just feels a little bit weird. I feel like I wouldn't be able to sort of contribute to the conversation if there's a conversation. And also like pacing wise, there's a certain pace where conversation is still possible, but it's a little uncomfortable. So, and I can't really think at that pace that well and talk.
I already struggle talking, so I don't know. We'll have to figure it out. But he's just such a great person to work out with and a great person to talk to that we'll have to figure it out. Anyway, AG1 is always part of the picture. And I drink it twice a day. It's the foundation of my nutrition.
It's the thing when I consume it, I feel like I've got all my bases covered, no matter the crazy mental or the physical stuff that I'm going to do. They'll give you a one-month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell stuff anywhere with a great looking online store.
It took me a really short time to set everything up. LexRiemann.com slash store. There's a few shirts on there. I actually got a Leonard Skinner shirt via Shopify. Recently, and I love it. I need to get more rock music, like classic rock shirts. They brought so much joy to me. I just want to celebrate it. I don't know why, but that seems like a cool way to celebrate it.
Especially if it's like a nice Leonard Skinner or Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd shirt. You know, a shirt I haven't quite found that's a go-to, and I'm sure one exists, is SRV, Steve Ray Vaughan. I just don't want a generic one. I want a super cool one. Him and Jimi Hendrix have a certain way about them that requires a super cool shirt, not just a generic one.
Anyway, you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash lex. That's all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system.
It is the machine inside the machine, where the company is the metamachine, and society is the metametamachine, because it's a collection of groups and companies. It's also a collection of nations in a constant state of anarchy against each other, with no centralized control. The centralized control comes from the government. That does the regulation on the machine of capitalism.
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It's kind of cool to think that there's 37,000 companies, each one with a person who founded or a collection of people founded that had a dream and that are working hard to bring that dream into a reality, trying to survive, trying to thrive, trying to make money, trying to put food on the table of all the families involved, all the responsibility of that. I don't know.
Those are all little puzzles, little battles, sometimes big battles fought. It's cool. I love humans. This is one of the ways that humans are awesome. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com. That's netsuite.com. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours.
It's kind of incredible, the power of language, the power of spoken language to explore the human mind. Because in order to generate speech, you have to take an idea that's in your head, and as you compress that idea,
into something that could be represented in comprehensible sequence of words, and you have to speak it within the full context of everything that's been spoken previously and everything that's been going on around. And then there's another human being on the other side that hears it.
First of all, they have to hear it correctly, you know, if it's noisy or whatever, or maybe their whole mind is focused on some aspect of the scene that prevents them from being able to really hear what's being said.
But once they do, they have to then interpret it and decode, decompress the thing that was represented in language into an idea and visualize it, integrate it, load it in to the brain and make sense of that idea, again, in the full context of everything that's happened before.
And in that way, back and forth, humans talk and make sense of the world together and make sense of their own mind together. It's just cool. It's cool that that's even possible. And it's cool that that's actually a powerful way to understand yourself and to understand the world. So yeah, I'm a big fan of talking, of rigorous, deep conversation.
Certainly talk therapy is rigorous and deep when done well. So if that's something that you're interested in trying, you should try BetterHelp because it's super easy. Check them out at betterhelp.com slash Lex and save on your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Lex. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Huberman. You think there's ever gonna be a day when you walk away from podcasting?
Definitely. I mean, I came up within and then on the periphery of skateboard culture. And for the record, I was not a great skateboarder. I always have to say that, because skateboarders are relentless if you call something you didn't do or whatever. I mean, I could do a few things, and I loved the community, and I still have a lot of friends in that community.
Jim Fibo at Deluxe, you can look him up. He's kind of the man behind the whole scene. I know Tony Hawk, Danny Way, all these guys. I got to see them come up and get big and stay big in many cases, start huge companies like Danny and call him a case, or DC. Some people have a long life in something, some don't.
But one thing I observed and learned a lot from in skateboarding at the level of observing the skateboarders and then the ones that started companies. And then what I also observed in science and still observe is you do it for a while, you do it at the highest possible level for you. And then at some point you pivot and you start supporting the young talent coming in.
In fact, the greatest scientists, people like Richard Axel, Catherine Duloc, there are many other labs in neuroscience, Karl Deisseroth. They're not just known for doing great science, they're known for mentoring some of the best scientists that then go on to start their own labs.
And I think in podcasting, I am very fortunate I got in in a fairly early wave, not the earliest wave, but thanks to your suggestion of doing a podcast, fairly early wave. And I'll continue to go as long as it feels right. And I feel like I'm doing good in the world and providing good, but I'm already starting to scout talent.
My company that I started with Rob Moore, Sycom Media, there's a couple other guys in there too, Mike Blayback, our photographer, Ian Mackey, Chris Ray, Martin Phobes. We are a company that produces podcasts. Right now that's Huberman Lab Podcast, but we're launching a new podcast, Perform, with Dr. Andy Galpin.
And we want to do more of that kind of thing, finding a really great talent, highly qualified people, credentialed people. And I've got a new kind of obsession with scouring the internet, looking for the young talent in science, in health, and related fields. And so will there be a final episode of the HLP? Yeah. I mean, bullet buster cancer aside, you know, someday they'll be the very last.
And thank you for your interest in science. And I'll clip out.
Yeah, I love the idea of walking away and not be dramatic about it. Right. When it feels right, you can leave and you can come back whenever the fuck you want. Right. Jon Stewart did this well with The Daily Show. I think that was during the 2016 election when everybody wanted him to stay on and he just walked away. Dave Chappelle for different reasons.
reasons, walked away, disappeared, came back, gave away so much money, didn't care. And then came back and was doing like stand up in the park in the middle of nowhere. You have Habib who, undefeated, walks away at the very top of a sport. Is he coming back? No.
Or at least we don't know. Yeah. Right, you don't know. I don't know if he knows. Bears everywhere are worried. Yeah, I think it's always a call. The last... A few years have been tremendous growth. We launched in January 2021, and even this last year, 2024, has been huge growth in all sorts of ways. It's been wild. And we have some short-form content planned,
30-minute shorter episodes that really distill down the critical elements. We're also thinking about moving to other venues besides podcasting. So there's always the thought and the discussion. But when it comes to when to hang up your cleats, there just comes a natural time where you can do more to mentor the next generation coming in. than focusing on self.
And so there will come a time for that. And I think it's critical. I mean, again, I saw this in skateboarding, like Danny and Colin and Danny's brother, Damon, started DC with Ken Block, the driver who unfortunately passed away a little while ago, rally car driver. And they eventually sold it, I think, to Quicksilver or something like that.
But they're all phenomenal talents in their respective areas, but they brought in the next on the next line of amazing writers, the Plan B thing, you know, Paul Rodriguez. For skateboarders, they know who this is. Now, in science, there are scientists like Feynman, for instance. I don't know if anyone can name one of his mentor offspring. So there are scientists who are phenomenal
like beyond world class, right? Multi-generational world class who don't make good mentors. I'm not saying he wasn't a good mentor, but that's not what he's known for. And then there are scientists who are known for being excellent scientists and great mentors. And I think there's no higher celebration to be had at the end of one's career.
If you can look back and be like, hey, I put some really important knowledge into the world. People made use of that knowledge. And guess what? You spawned all these other people scientific offspring or sport offspring or podcast offspring. I mean, in some ways, we look to Rogan and to some of the other earlier podcasts. It's like they paved the way.
Rhonda Patrick, first science podcast out there. So, you know, eventually, the baton passes. But fortunately, right now, everybody's active and it feels really good.
Yeah, well, you're talking about the healthy way to do it. But there's also... a different kind of way where you have somebody like Grisha Grigori Perlman, the mathematician who refused to accept the Fields Medal. So he's one of the greatest living mathematicians and he just walked away from mathematics and rejected the Fields Medal. What did he do after he left mathematics? Life, private, 100%.
I respect that. He's become essentially a recluse. These photos of him looking very broke, like he could use the money. He turned away the money. He turned away everything. You just have to listen to the inner voice. You have to listen to yourself and make the decisions that don't make any sense for the rest of the world and make sense to you.
Bob Dylan didn't show up to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize. That's punk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He probably grew in notoriety for that. Maybe he just doesn't like going to Sweden, but it seemed like it would be a fun trip. I think they do it in a nice time of year. But hey, that's his right. He earned that right.
I think the best artists aren't doing it for the prize. They aren't doing it for the fame or the money. They're doing it because they love the art. Yeah, that's the Rick Rubin thing.
You got to verb it through, download your inner thing. I don't think we've talked about this, that this obsession that I have about how Rick has this way of being very, very still in his body, but keeping his mind very active as a practice. Went and spent some time with him in Italy last June.
And we would tread water in his pool in the morning and listen to a history of rock and roll and a hundred songs. Amazing podcast, by the way. It is. Yeah. And then he would spend a fair amount of time during the day in this kind of meditative state where his mind is very active, body very still.
And then Karl Deisteroth, when he came on my podcast, talked about how he forces himself to sit still and think in complete sentences late at night after his kids go to sleep.
You know, there's a state of mind, rapid eye movement sleep, where your body is completely paralyzed and the mind is extremely active, and people credit rapid eye movement sleep with some of the more elaborate emotion-filled dreams and the source of many ideas. And there are other examples, Einstein,
People described him as taking walks around the Princeton campus, then pausing, and would ask him what was going on, and the idea that his mind was continuing to churn forward at a high rate.
So this is far from controlled studies, but we're talking about some incredible minds and creatives who have a practice of stilling the body while keeping the mind deliberately very active, very similar to rapid eye movement sleep. And then there are a lot of people who also report great ideas coming to them in the shower or while running.
So it can be the opposite as well, where the body is very active and the mind is perhaps more on kind of like a default mode network, not really focusing on any one specific thing.
You know, interesting, there's a bunch of physicists and mathematicians I've talked to. They talk about sleep deprivation and going crazy hours through the night, obsessively pursuing a thing. And then the solution to the problem comes when they finally get rest.
Right, and we know, we just did this six-episode special series on sleep with Matt Walker. We know that... When you deprive yourself of sleep and then you get sleep, you get a rebound in rapid eye movement sleep. You get a higher percentage of rapid eye movement sleep. And Matt talks about this in the podcast. And he did an episode on sleep and creativity, sleep and memory.
And rapid eye movement sleep comes up multiple times in that series. There's also some very interesting stuff about cannabis withdrawal and rapid eye movement sleep. People are coming off cannabis often will suffer from insomnia, but when they finally do start sleeping, they dream like crazy. Cannabis is a very controversial topic right now.
Yeah, I saw that. What happened? There's a bunch of drama around an episode you did on cannabis.
Yeah, we did an episode about cannabis, talked about the health benefits and the potential risks, right? It's neither here nor there. Depends on the person, depends on the age, depends on genetic background, a number of other things. We published that episode well over a year ago and it had no issues online, so to speak.
And then a clip of it was put to X where, you know, the real action occurs, as you know, your favorite spot. Um, yeah, the, the, the four ounce gloves, as opposed to the 16 ounce gloves, um, that is X versus Instagram or YouTube. There was, um, kind of an immediate dog pile from a few people in the cannabis research field. The PhDs and MDs, yeah.
There were people on our side, there were people not on our side. The statement that got things riled up the most was this notion that for certain individuals, there's a high potential for inducing psychosis with high THC-containing cannabis. For certain individuals, not all. That sparked some issues. There was really a split. You see this in different fields.
There was one person in particular who came out swinging with language that, in my opinion, is not of the sort that you would use at a university venue, especially among colleagues. But that's fine. We're all grownups.
Well, for me, from my perspective, it was strangely rude. And it had an air of elitism that... to me, was it the source of the problem during COVID that led to the distrust of science and the popularization of disrespecting science because so many scientists spoke with an arrogance and a douchebaggery that I wish we would have a little bit less of.
Yeah, it's tough because most academics don't understand that people outside the university system are, they don't, they're not familiar with
like the inner workings of science and um and the culture and so you have to be very careful how you present when you're a university professor um and when yeah so you know he came out swinging at some you know a four-letter word type language and he was obviously upset about so i simply said what i would say anywhere which was hey look you come on the podcast let's chat and um why don't you give your tell me where i'm wrong and let's discuss and and fortunately he agreed
and initially he said well no how can i be sure you're not going to misrepresent me and so i said we got on a dm then an email then eventually phone call and just said hey listen like you're welcome to record the whole conversation we've never done a gotcha on my podcast and let's just get to the heart of the matter i think this this little controversy is perfect um kindling for for a really great discussion and um
And he had some other conditions that we worked out. And I felt like, cool, like he's really interested. You get a very different person on the phone than you do on Twitter. I will say he's been very collegial. And that conversation is on the schedule. I said, we'll fly you out. We'll put you up. He said, no, he wants to fly himself.
He really wants to make sure that there's like kind of a space between. I think some of the perception of science and health podcasts in the academic community is that it's all designed to sell something. No, we run ads so it can be free to everyone else.
Yeah.
But I think, look, in the end, he agreed and I'm excited for the conversation. It was interesting because in the wake of that little exchange, There's been a bunch of press from traditional press about cannabis has now surpassed alcohol in many cultures as within the United States, as when I say cultures, I mean demographics, the United States as the drug of choice.
There have been people highlighting the issues of potential psychosis in high THC containing cannabis. And so it's kind of interesting to see how traditional media is sort of on board certain elements that I put forward. And I think there's some controversy as to whether or not the different strains, the indicas and sativas, are biologically different, et cetera.
So we'll get down into the weeds, pun intended, during that one. And I'm excited. It's the first time that we've responded to to a direct criticism online about scientific content in a way that really promoted like, oh, here, the idea of inviting a particular guest. And so it's great, let's get a guest who is expert in cannabis.
I believe, I could be wrong about this, that he's a behavioral neuroscientist, it's slightly different training, but look, he seems highly credentialed, it'll be fun. And we welcome that kind of exchange. I deeply- And I'm not being diplomatic. I'm just saying like, it's cool. Like he's coming on, you know, and he was friendly on the phone, right?
Like he literally came out online and was like, basically like, kind of like F you. Like F this and F you. But you get someone on the phone and it's like, hey, how's it going? And they're like, oh yeah, well, you know, there was an immediate apology of like, hey, listen, I came out- Normally I'm like, not like that, but online. You know, you get a different.
So it's a little bit like, it's a little bit like jujitsu, right? People say all sorts of things, I guess. But if they, if you're like, all right, well, let's go. Then it's probably a different story.
It's not like jujitsu because in jujitsu people don't talk shit because they know what the consequences are. Let me, let me just say on mic and off mic, you have been very respectful towards this person. and look up to you and respect you and admire the fact that you have been. That said, to me, that guy was being a dick.
And when you graciously, politely invited him on the podcast, he was still talking down to you the whole time. So I really admire and look forward to listening to you talk to him, but I hope others don't do that. Like you are a positive, humble voice exploring all the interesting aspects of science. You want to learn. If you've got anything wrong, you want to learn about it.
The way he was being a dick, I was just hurt a little bit, not because of him, but because there's some people I really, really admire, brilliant scientists that are not their best selves on Twitter, on X. I don't understand what happens to their brain. Well, they regress.
They regress. And they also are protected. You know, when you remove the... I mean, no scientific argument should ever come to physical blows, right?
But when you remove the real world thing of being right in front of somebody, people will throw all sorts of stones at a distance and over a wall, and they've got their wife or their husband or their boyfriend or their dog or their cat to go cuddle with them afterwards. But you get in a room and it's like, confrontational people,
in real life are pretty rare, but hopefully if they do it, they're like willing to back it up with knowledge in this case, right? We're not talking about physical altercation. Yeah, he kept coming and he kept putting on conditions. How do I know you want this? And I was like, well, you can record the conversation. How do I know you want that? Listen, we'll pay for you to come out. How do you know?
And eventually he just kind of relented and to his credit, you know, he's agreed to come on. I mean, he still has to show up, but once he does, you know, we'll treat him right like we would any other guest. Yeah, you treat people really well, and I just hope that people are a little bit nicer on the internet.
Yeah, well, you know, X is an interesting one because it thickens your skin, you know, just to go on there. I mean, you have to be ready to deal with.
Sure, but I can still criticize people for being douchebags because, like, that's still not good inspiring behavior, like, especially for scientists. that should be sort of symbols of scientific thinking, which requires intellectual humility. Humility is a big part of that, and Twitter is a good place to illustrate that.
Years ago, I was a student in TA, then instructor, and then directed a Cold Spring Harbor course on visual neuroscience. These are summer courses that explore different topics. And at night, we would host what we hoped were battles in front of the students.
where you'd get two people on a, you know, would it be neural prosthetics or molecular tools that would first, you know, restore vision to the blind kind of arguments. And you kind of like, it's kind of a silly argument because it's gonna be a combination of both, right? But you'd get these great arguments. But the arguments were always couched in data.
And occasionally you'd get somebody would go like, or would curse or something. But it was the rare, very well-placed insult. It wasn't coming out swinging. I think ultimately, Twitter's a record of people's behavior. The internet is a record of people's behavior. And here I'm not talking about news reports about people's behavior. I'm talking about how people show up online is really important.
You've always carried yourself with a ton of composure and respect, and you would hope that people would grow from that example. Well, I'll tell you that the podcasters that I'm scouting, it's their energy, but it's also how they treat other people, how they respond to comments,
You know, we're blessed to have pretty significant reach when we put out a podcast like someone else's podcast, it goes far and wide. So like a skateboard team, like a laboratory where you're selecting people to be in your lab, you want to pick people that you would enjoy working with and that are collegial. Etiquette is lacking nowadays, but you're in the suit and tie, you're bringing it back.
Bringing it back, you said that your conversation with James Hollis, a Jungian psychoanalyst, had a big impact on you. What do you mean?
James Hollis is a 84-year-old union psychoanalyst who's written 17 books, including Under Saturn's Shadow, which is on the healing and trauma of men, the Eden Project, excuse me, which is about relationships and creating a life. I discovered James Hollis in an online lecture that was recorded, I think, in San Diego. It's on YouTube. The audio is terrible, called Creating a Life.
And this was somewhere in the 2011 to 2015 span. I can't remember. And I was on my way to Europe and I called my girlfriend at the time. I was like, I just found the most incredible lecture I've ever heard. And he talks about the shadow. He talks about your developmental upbringing and how you either align with or go 180 degrees off your parents' tendencies and values in certain areas.
He talked about the specific questions to ask of oneself at different stages of life to live a full life. So it's always been a dream of mine to meet him and to record a podcast. And he wasn't able to travel, so our team went out to D.C. and sat down with him. We rarely do that nowadays. People come to our studio.
And he came in, he had some surgeries recently, and he kind of came in with some assistance from a cane and then sat down and just... just blew my mind. From start to finish, he didn't miss a syllable. And every sentence that he spoke was like a quotable sentence with real potency and actionable items.
I think one of the things that was most striking to me was how he said, when we take ourselves out of stimulus and response,
and we just force ourselves to spend some time in the quiet of our thoughts while walking or while seated or while lying down, doesn't have to be meditation, but it could be, that we access our unconscious mind in ways that reveals to us who we really are and what we really want. And that if we do that practice repeatedly, 10 minutes a day here, 15 minutes a day there,
that we start to really touch into our unique gifts and the things that make us each us and the directions we need to take. But that so often we just stay in stimulus response. We just do, do, do, do, do, which is great. We have to be productive. But we miss those important messages. And interestingly, he also... put forward this idea of, what is it? It's like, get up, shut up, suit up.
Yeah, something like that. Like, get out of bed, suit up, and shut up, and get to work. He also has that in him, kind of a Goggins-type mindset. So be able to turn off all this self-reflection and self-analysis and just get shit done. Get shit done, but then also take dedicated time and stop and just let stuff geyser to the surface from the unconscious mind.
And he quotes Shakespeare, and he quotes Jung, and he quotes
everybody through history with with incredible accuracy and um and in exactly the way uh needed to drive home a point but that conversation to me was one that i really felt like okay you know if i don't wake up tomorrow for whatever reason that one's in the can and i feel really great about it it's it to me it's the most important um guest recording we've ever done um
in particular because he has wisdom. And while I hope he lives to be 204, chances are he's got another, what, 20, 30 years with us, hopefully more. But I really, really wanted to capture that information and get it out there. So I'm very, very proud of that one. And he's the kind of guy that anyone listens to him, young, old, male, female, whatever, and you're going to get something of value.
What do you think about this idea? of the shadow, that the good and the bad that we repress, that hides from plain sight when we analyze ourselves, that's there. You think there's like a ocean that we don't have direct access to?
Jung said it, we have all things inside of us, and we do, and some people are more in touch with those than others, and some people it's repressed. I mean, does that mean that we could all be, you know, horrible people or marvelous people, benevolent people? Perhaps, I think that... thankfully more often than not people lean away from the like violent and harmful parts of their, their shadow.
But I think spending time thinking about, you know, one's,
shadow shadows is super important how how else are we going to grow otherwise you know we have these unconscious blind spots of denial or um repression or whatever you know the psychiatrists tell us but it clearly exists within all of us i mean we have neural circuits for rage we all do we have neural circuits for altruism um and no one's born without these things and some people they're atrophied and some people that are hypertrophied but
Looking inward and recognizing what's there is key.
Or positive things like creativity. Maybe that's what Rick Rubin is accessing when he goes silent. Silent body, active mind. That's interesting. What is it for you? What place do you go to that generates ideas, that helps you generate ideas?
I have a lot of new practices around this. I mean, I'm always exploring for protocols. I have to. It's like in my nature. When I went and spent time with Rick, I tried to adopt his practice of staying very still and just letting stuff come to the surface or the Dicerathian way of formulating complete sentences while being still in the body. What I...
FM works better is what my good friend Tim Armstrong does to write music. He writes music every day. He's a music producer, he's obviously a singer, guitar player for Rancid, and he's helped dozens and dozens and dozens of female pop artists and punk rock artists write great songs. Many of the famous songs that you've heard from other artists, Tim helped them write.
Tim wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night and what he does is he'll start drawing or painting. So what he's done, and Joni Mitchell talks about this too, you find some creative outlet that's like 15 degrees off center from your main creative outlet. And you do that thing. So for me, that's drawing.
I like doing anatomical drawings, neuroscience-based drawing, drawing neurons, that kind of thing. And if I do that for a little while, my mind starts churning on the nervous system and biology. And then I come up with... areas I'd like to explore for the podcast, ways I'd like to address certain topics. Right now, I'm very interested in autonomic control.
A beautiful paper came out that shows that anyone can learn to control their pupil sizes without changing luminance through a biofeedback mechanism. And that gives them control over their so-called automatic autonomic nervous system. And I've been looking at what the circuitry is, and it's beautiful. So I'll draw the circuitry that we know underlies autonomic function.
And as I'm doing that, I'm thinking, oh, like, what about autonomic control and those people that supposedly can control their pupil size? Then you go in and there's a paper published in Nature Press, one of the nature journals, and there's a recent paper on this. Like, oh, cool. And then we talk about this.
And then how could this be put into a kind of a post or how could this, you know, so doing things that are about 15 degrees off center from your main thing is a great way to access, I believe, the circuits for, in Tim's case, painting goes to songwriting. I think for Joni Mitchell, that was also the case, right? I think it was drawing and painting to singing and songwriting.
For Rick, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's listening to podcasts. I don't know. That's his business. Do you have anything that you like to focus on that allows you then an easier transition into your main creative work?
No, I really like to focus on emptiness and silence. So I pick the dragon I have to slay. So whatever the problem I have to work on, and I just sit there. And stare at it. I love how fucking linear you are. And if you're tired, I'll just sit.
I believe in the power of just waiting, and usually I'll stop being tired, or energy rises from somewhere, or an idea pops from somewhere, but there needs to be a silence and an emptiness. It's an empty room, just me and the dragon, and we wait, that's it. Usually with programming, you're thinking about a particular design, like how do I design this thing to solve this problem?
Any cognitive enhancers? I've got quite the gallery in front of me. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Should we walk through this?
Yeah.
This is not a sales thing. It's just I tend to do this bounce back and forth. Your refrigerator just happened to have a lot of different choices.
So water.
This is all my refrigerator. I know, right? There's no food in there. There's water. There's element, which they now have canned. Yeah. And yes, they're a podcast sponsor for both of us, but that's not why I cracked one of these open. I like them provided they're cold.
And that's, by the way, my least favorite flavor, as I was saying. That's the reason it's still left in the fridge. The cherry one is really good. The black cherry.
There's an orange one. I pushed the sled this morning and pulled the sled from my workout at the gym, and it was hot today here in Austin. So some salt is good. And then matina yerba mate, zero sugar. Full confession, I helped develop this. I'm a partial owner, but I love yerba mate. Half Argentine, been drinking it. mate since I was a little kid.
There's actually a photo somewhere on the internet when I'm like three sitting on my grandfather's lap, sipping mate out the gourd. And then this, my fun, interesting, this is just a little bit of coffee. with a scoop of Brian Johnson gave me cocoa, just like pure unsweetened cocoa. So I put that in chocolate and I like it. Just for the taste. Well, it actually nukes my appetite.
And since we're not going out to dinner tonight until later, I figure that's good. Yeah, Brian's an interesting one, right? He's really pushing this thing. The optimization of everything. Yeah. Although he just hurt his ankle. He posted a photo that he hurt his ankle. So now he's injecting BPC, body protection compound 157, which many, many people are taking, by the way.
I did an episode on peptides. I should just say, you know, BPC-157, one of the known effects in animal models is angiogenesis, like development of new vasculature, which can be great in some context, but also if you have a tumor, you don't really want to vascularize that tumor anymore. So I worry about people taking BPC-157 continually, but, and there's very little human data.
I think there's like one study and it's a lousy one. So a lot of animal data. Some of the peptides, are interesting. However, there's one that I've experimented with a little bit called pinellin, which I find, even if I've just taken it twice a week before sleep, then it seems to do something to the
circadian timekeeping mechanism, because then on other days when I don't take it, I get unbelievably tired at that time that normally I would do the injection. These are things that I'll experiment with for a couple of weeks and then typically stop, maybe try something else. But I stay out of things that really stimulate any of the major hormone pathways. When it comes to peptides,
That's actually a really good question of how do you experiment? Like how long do you try a thing to figure out if it works for you?
Well, I'm very sensitive to these things, and I have been doing a lot of things for a long time, so if I add something in, it's always one thing at a time, and I notice right away if it does not make me feel good. Like there's a lot of excitement about some of the so-called growth hormone secretagogues, hypermorelin, testamorelin, sermorelin.
I've experimented a little bit with those in the past, and they've nuked my rapid eye movement sleep, but given me a lot of deep sleep, which doesn't feel good to me, but other people like them. I also just generally try and avoid taking peptides that tap into these hormone pathways because you can run into all sorts of issues. But some people take them safely.
But usually after about four or five days, I know if I like something or I don't, and then I move on. But I am not super adventurous with these things. I know people that will take cocktails of peptides with multiple things. They'll try anything. That's not me. And I do blood work.
Um, but also I'm, you know, I'm mainly reading papers and podcasting and, um, I'm teaching a course next spring, Stanford, I'm going to do a big undergraduate course. Um, so I'm trying to develop that course and things like that. So, um, I don't need to lift more weight or run further than I already do, which is not that much weight or, or far as it is.
All right, you're not going to the Olympics. You're not trying to truly maximize some aspect of your performance.
No, and I'm not trying to get down below whatever, you know, 7% body fat or something. I don't have those kinds of goals. So hydration, electrolytes, caffeine in the form of mate, and then this coffee thing. And then here's one that I think I brought out for discussion. This is a piece of Nicorette. They're not a sponsor. Nicotine is an interesting compound. It will raise blood pressure, and it...
It's probably not safe for everybody, but nicotine is gaining in popularity like crazy, mainly these pouches that people put in the lip. We're not talking about smoking, vaping, dipping, or snuffing. My interest in nicotine started, this was in 2010. I was visiting Columbia Medical School, and I was in the office of the great neurobiologist Richard Axel, won the Nobel Prize.
co-recipient with Linda Buck for the discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction. Brilliant guy. He's probably in his late 70s now. Probably, yeah. And he kept popping Nicorette in his mouth. And I was like, what's this about? And he said, oh, well, this was just anecdote, right? But he said this. He said, oh, well, you know, it protects against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I said, it does?
And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if he was kidding or not. He's known for making jokes. And then he said that when he used to smoke... It really helped his focus and creativity, but then he quit smoking because he didn't want lung cancer, and he found that he couldn't focus as well, so he would choose Nicorette.
So occasionally, like right now, I do a half a piece, but I'm not Russian, so I'm a little, you know. Did you just pop the whole thing in your mouth? So I'll do a couple milligrams every now and again. And it definitely sharpens the mind on an empty stomach in particular, but you fast all day. You're still doing one meal a day?
One meal a day.
Yeah. Yeah, I did a nicotine pouch with Rogan at dinner and I got high. Yeah, that's a lot. That's like usually six or eight milligrams. I know people that get a canister of Zin, take one a day, pretty soon they're taking a canister a day. So you have to be very careful. I will only allow myself... two pieces of Nicorette total per week.
And you will notice that, you know, in the day after you use it, you know, sometimes your throat will feel a little bit like, like a little spasmy, like you might want to cough once or twice. And so, you know, if you're a singer or you're a podcaster or something, you have to do long podcasts. You want to just be mindful of it. But yeah, you're supposed to kind of like keep it in your cheek and
Here we go. But it did make me intensely focused. In a way, that was a little bit scary. The nucleus basalis is in the basal forebrain. Nucleus has cholinergic neurons that radiate out axons, little wires that release acetylcholine into the neocortex and elsewhere.
And when you focus on one particular topic matter or one particular area of your visual field or listening to something and focusing visually, we know that there's an elaboration of the amount of acetylcholine released there and it binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptor sites there. So it's a kind of an attentional modulation by acetylcholine. So you're getting with nicotine, you're getting a
or artificial heightening of that circuitry.
And the time I had Tucker Carlson on the podcast, he told me that apparently it helps him, as he said publicly, keep his... Love life. Vibrant. Really? It causes vasoconstrictions.
He literally said it makes his dick very hard. He said that publicly also. Okay, well, as little as I want to think about Tucker Carlson's sex life, no disrespect. The... Major effect of nicotine on the vasculature, my understanding is that it causes vasoconstriction, not vasodilation. Drugs like Cialis, Tadalafil, Viagra, et cetera, are vasodilators. They allow more blood flow.
Nicotine does the opposite, less blood flow to the periphery, but provided dosages are kept low. And I don't recommend people use it frequently or at all. And I don't recommend young people use it, you know, you know, 25 and younger. Brain's very plastic at that time. And certainly smoking, dipping, vaping, and snuffing aren't good because you're going to run into trouble for other reasons.
But in any case, even there, vaping is a controversial topic. Probably safer than smoking, but has its own issues. And I said something like that, and boy, did I catch a lot of heat for that. You can't say anything as a health science educator and not piss somebody off. Just depends on where the center of mass is and how far outside that you are.
For me, the caffeine is the main thing. And actually, it's a really big part of my life. And one of the things you recommend that people wait a bit in the morning to consume caffeine.
If they experience a crash in the afternoon, this is one of the misconceptions I regret maybe even discussing it. For people that crash in the afternoon, Oftentimes, if they delay their caffeine by 60 to 90 minutes in the morning, they will offset some of that. But if you eat a lunch that's too big or you didn't sleep well the night before, you're not going to avoid that afternoon crash.
But I'll wake up sometimes and go straight to hydration and caffeine, especially if I'm going to work out. Here's a weird one. If I exercise before... 8.30 a.m., especially if I start exercising when I'm a little bit tired, I get energy that lasts all day. If I wait until my peak of energy, which is mid-morning, 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and I start exercising then, I'm basically exhausted all afternoon.
And I don't understand why. I mean, it depends on the intensity of the workout. So I like to be done, showered, and heading into work by 9 a.m., but I don't always meet that mark. So you're saying it doesn't affect your energy if you start out with exercising? I think you can get energy and wake yourself up with exercise if you start early, and then that fuels you all day long.
I think that if you wait until you're feeling at your best to train, Sometimes that's detrimental because then in the afternoon when you're doing the work we get paid for, like research, podcasting, et cetera, then oftentimes your brain isn't firing as well.
That's interesting.
I haven't really rigorously tried that wake up and just start running or listening. This is the Jocko thing. And then there's this phenomenon called entrainment, where if you force yourself to exercise or eat or socialize or view bright light at a certain time of day for three to seven days in a row, pretty soon there's an anticipatory circuit that gets generated. This is why
Anyone, in theory, can become a morning person to some degree or another. And this is also a beautiful example of why you wake up before your alarm clock goes off. You know, people wake up and all of a sudden it goes off. It wasn't because it clicked. It was because you have this incredible timekeeping mechanism that exists in sleep.
And there's some papers that have been published in the last couple of years, Nature Neuroscience and elsewhere, showing that people can answer math problems in their sleep. Simple math problems, but math problems nonetheless. This does not mean that if you ask your partner a question in sleep that they're gonna answer accurately.
Like they might screw up the whole cumulative probability of 20% across multiple months. All right, listen.
What happened? What happened? Here's the deal. A few years back, I did a four and a half hour, after editing, four and a half hour episode on male and female fertility. The entire recording took 11 hours. And at one point during the... And by the way, I'm very proud of that episode. Many couples have written to me and said they now have children as a consequence of that episode.
And my first question is, what were you doing during the episode? But in all seriousness... We should say that it's four and a half hours.
And for people, and they should listen to the episode, you're... It's an extremely technical episode. You're nonstop dropping facts and referencing a huge number of papers. It must be exhausting. I don't understand how you could possibly do that.
It talks about sperm health, spermatogenesis. It talks about the ovulatory cycle. It talks about things people can do that are considered absolutely supported by science. It talks about some of the things kind of out on the edge a little bit that are a little bit more experimental. It talks about IVF. It talks about ICSI. It talks about all of that.
It talks about frequency of pregnancy as a function of age. et cetera. But there's this one portion there in the podcast where I'm talking about the probability of a successful pregnancy as a function of age. And so... There was a clip that was cut in which I was describing cumulative probability.
And by the way, we've published cumulative probability histograms in many of my laboratory's papers, including one that was a Nature article in 2018, so we run these all the time. And yes, I know the difference between independent and cumulative probability. I do. The way the clip was cut
And what I stated, unfortunately, combined to like a pretty great gaffe, where I say, you're just adding, I said, you're just adding percentages, 20 to 120 to 120%. And then I made a kind of, unfortunately, my humor isn't always so good. And I made a joke. I said, 120%, but that's a different thing altogether. What I should have said was,
that's impossible, you know, and here's how it actually works. But then it continues where I then describe the cumulative probability histogram for successful pregnancy. But somewhere in the early portion, I misstated something, right? I made a math error. which implied I didn't understand the difference between independent and cumulative probability, which I do.
And it got picked up and run and people had a really good laugh with that one at my expense. And so what I did in response to it was rather than just say everything I just said now, I said, I just came out online and said, hey, folks, in an episode dated this on fertility, I made a math error. Here is the formula for cumulative probability, successful pregnancy at that age.
Here's the graph, here's the, you know, and I offered it as a teaching moment in two ways. One, for people to understand cumulative probability. It was sort of interesting, too, a number of people that had come out critiquing the GAF. Also, like Bology and folks came out pointing out that they didn't understand cumulative probability. So there was a lot of posturing.
You know, the dog pile, oftentimes people are quick to dog pile. They didn't understand, but a lot of people did understand. Some smart people out there, obviously. I called my dad and he was just laughing. He goes, oh, this is good. This is like the old school way of hammering academics. But the point being, it was a teaching moment. Gave me an opportunity to say, hey, I made a mistake.
I also made a mistake in another podcast where I did a micron to millimeter conversion or centimeter conversion. And we always correct these in the show note captions. We correct them in the audio now. Unfortunately, on YouTube, it's harder to correct. You can't go and edit in segments. We put in the captions. But that was the one teaching moment.
If you make a mistake, it's substantive and relate to data. You apologize and correct the mistake. Use the teaching moment. The other one was to say, hey, you know, in all the thousands of hours of content we've put out, I'm sure I've made some small errors. I think I once said serotonin when I mentioned.
dopamine and you know you're you're going you're you're riffing and it's a reminder to be careful um to edit double check but the internet usually edits for us and then we go make corrections but it didn't feel good at first but ultimately you know i can laugh at myself about it um
Long ago at Berkeley, when I was TAing my first class, it was a biopsychology class, it must be 1998 or 1999, I was drawing the pituitary gland, which has an anterior and a posterior lobe, actually there's a medial lobe too.
I had five, 600 students in that lecture hall, and I drew, it was chalkboard, and I drew the two lobes of the pituitary, and I said, my back was to the audience, I said, you know, and so they just sort of hang there. Mm-hmm. And everyone just erupted in laughter because it looked like a scrotum with two testicles. And I remember thinking like, oh, my God, I don't think I can turn around.
I can face this, you know. And I'm like, oh, I got to turn around sooner or later. So I turned around and we just all had a big laugh together. It was embarrassing. I'll tell you one thing, though. They never forgot about the two lobes of the pituitary. Yeah, and you haven't forgotten about that either. Right, there's a high salience for these kinds of things. And it also was kind of fun to see
how excited people get to see people trip. It's like an elite sprinter trips and does something stupid, like, you know, runs the opposite direction out of the blocks or something like that. Or, you know, I recall at one World Cup match years ago, a guy scored against his own team. I think they killed the guy. Do you remember that? Some South American or Central American team.
And they killed the guy. But yeah, let's look it up. I just said World Cup. Yeah, he was gunned down.
Andres Escobar.
Yeah.
Scored against his own team in 1994 World Cup in the United States. Just 27 years old. Playing for the Columbia National Team.
Yeah.
Last name Escobar. That's a good name.
I think it would protect you. Listen, you know, so... There are some gaffes that get people killed, right? So, you know, how forgiving are we for online mistakes? You know, it's the nature of the mistakes. People were quite gracious about the gaffe and some weren't. And, you know, it's interesting that, um,
We, as public health science educators, we'll do long podcasts sometimes and you need to be really careful. What's great is AI. allows you to check these things now more readily. So that's cool. And there are ways that it's now gonna be more self-correcting. I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of errors out there on the internet and people are finding them and it's cool.
Like things are getting cleaned up. Yeah, but mistakes nevertheless will happen. Do you feel the pressure of not making mistakes? Sure. I mean, you know, I try and get things right to the best, you know, to the best of my ability. I check with experts. It's kind of interesting when people really don't like something that was said in a podcast.
A lot of times I chuckle because I'm, you know, at Stanford, we have some amazing scientists, but I talk to them else people elsewhere. And it's always interesting to me. How. you know, I'll get divergent information and then I'll find the overlap in the Venn diagram. And I have this like question, do I just stay with the overlap in the Venn diagram? Like I did an episode on oral health.
I didn't know this until I researched that episode, but oral health is critically related to heart health and brain health. There's a bacteria that causes cavities, streptococcus, you know? that can make its way into other parts of the body through the mouth that can cause serious issues. There's the idea that some forms of dementia, some forms of heart disease start in the mouth basically.
I talked to no fewer than four dentists, dental experts, and there was a lot of convergence. I also learned that Teeth can demineralize, that's the formation of cavities. They can also remineralize. As long as the cavity isn't too deep, it can actually fill itself back in, especially if you provide the right substrates for it.
That saliva is this incredible fluid that has all this capacity to remineralize teeth, provided the milieu is right. things like alcohol-based mouthwashes, killing off some of the critical things you need. It was fascinating. And I put out that episode thinking, oh, I'm not a dentist. I'm not an oral health episode, but I talked to a pediatric dentist.
There's a terrific one, Dr. Downscore Stacy, S-T-A-C-I, on Instagram, does great content. Talked to some others. And then I just waited for the attack. I was like, here we go. And it didn't come. and dentists were thanking me. I was like, whoa, you know? That's a rare thing.
More often than not, if I do an episode about, say, psilocybin or MDMA, you get some people liking it, or ADHD and the drugs for ADHD. We did a whole episode on the Ritalin, Vyvanse, Adderall stuff. You get people saying, thank you, you know, I prescribed this to my kid and it really helps. But they're private about the fact that they do it because they get so much attack from other people.
So I like to find the center of mass, report that, try and make it as clear as possible. And then I know that there's some stuff where I'm going to catch shit. What's frustrating for me is when like I see claims that I'm like against fluoridization of water, which I'm not, right? Like we talked about the benefits of fluoride. It builds hyper strong bonds within the teeth.
I went and looked at some of the, literally the crystal structure, excuse me, not the crystal structure, but essentially the like micron and submicron structure of teeth is incredible and where fluoride can get in there and form these super strong bonds. And you can also form them with things like hydroxyapatite. And why is there fluoride in water? Well, it's the best.
Okay, you say some things that are interesting, but then somehow it gets turned into like you're against fluoridization, which I'm not. Or I've been accused of being against sunscreen. I wear mineral-based sunscreen on my face. I don't want to get skin cancer, or I use a physical barrier. There is a cohort of people out there that think that all sunscreens are bad. I'm not one of them.
I'm not what's called a sunscreen truther. But then you get attacked for like, so we're talking about there are certain sunscreens that are problematic. So what, and Rhonda Patrick's now starting to get vocal about this. And so there are certain topics it's interesting for which
you have to listen carefully to what somebody is saying, but there's a lumper or lumping as opposed to splitting of what health educators say. And so it just seems like, like with politics, there's this like urgency to just put people into a camp of expert versus like renegade or something. And it's not like that. It's just not like that.
So the short answer is I really strive, really strive to get things right. But I know that I'm going to piss certain people off. And you've taught me And Joe's taught me and other podcasters have taught me that if you worry too much about it, then you aren't gonna get the newest information out there.
Like peptides, there's very little human data, unless you're talking about Vilisi or the stuff in the alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone stuff, which are prescribed for female libido, to enhance female libido, or sermorelin, which is for certain growth hormone deficiencies. With rare exception, there's very little human data.
but people are still super interested and a lot of people are taking and doing these things. So you want to get the information out.
Do you try to not just look at the science, but research what the communities are talking, what the various communities are talking about? Like maybe research what the conspiracy theorists are talking about, just so you know, all the armies that are going to be attacking your castle.
Yes. So like, for instance, there's a community of people online that believe that like, if you consume seed oils or something that like you're setting up your skin for sunburn. And if you don't, you know, like there's all these like theories, but I liked it. So I like to know what the theories are.
I like to know what the extremes are, but I also like to know what the standard conversation is, but there's generally more agreement than disagreement. I think where, um, you know, I've been kind of bullish actually as, you know, or like supplements, like people go, oh, supplements. Well, there's food supplements, like a protein powder, which is different than a vitamin.
And then they are compounds. There are compounds that have real benefit, but people get very nervous about the fact that they're not regulated, but some of them are vetted for potency and for safety with more rigor than others, you know? And it's interesting to see how people who take care of themselves and put a lot of work into that are often attacked. That's been interesting.
Also, one of the most controversial topics nowadays is Ozempic, Monjaro. I'm very middle of the road on this. I don't understand why the... quote unquote, health wellness community is so against these things. I also don't understand why they have to be looked at as the only route. For some people, they've really helped them lose weight.
And yes, there can be some muscle loss and other lean body loss, but that can be offset with resistance training. They've helped a lot of people. And other people are like, no, this stuff is terrible. I think the most interesting thing about Ozempic Monjaro is that they are GLP-1, they're in the GLP-1 pathway, glucagon-like peptide one, and it was discovered in Gila monsters.
which is a lizard, basically. Now the entomologist will dive on me. It's a big lizard-looking thing that doesn't eat very often, and they figured out that there's this peptide that allows it to curb its own appetite. at the level of the brain and the gut, and it has a lot of homology to, sequence homology to what we now call GLP-1.
So I love anytime there's animal biology links to cool human biology links to a drug that's powerful that can help people with obesity and type two diabetes, and there's evidence that can even curb some addictions. Those are newer data. But I don't see it as either or.
In fact, I've been a little bit disappointed at the way that the, whatever you want to call it, health wellness, biohacking community has like slammed on Ozempic Monjaro. It's like, they're like, just get out and run. Listen, there are people who are carrying substantial amounts of weight that running could injure them. They get on these drugs and they can improve.
And then hopefully they're also doing resistance training and eating better. And then, you know, you're bringing all the elements together.
Well, why do you think the criticism is happening? Is it that Ozempic became super popular so people are misusing it or that kind of thing? No, I think what it is is that people...
think if it's a pharmaceutical, it's bad. And then, or if it's a supplement, it's bad depending on which camp they're in. And wouldn't it be wonderful to kind of like fill in the gap between this divide? You know, what I would like to see in politics and in health is neither right nor left, but what we can just call a league of reasonable people that looks at things on an issue by issue basis
And fills in the center, because I think most people are in are I don't want to say center in a political way, but I think most people are reasonable. They want to be reasonable, but that's not what sells clicks. That's not what that's not what drives interest. But I'm a very like like I look at issue by issue, person by person. I don't like in-group, out-group stuff. I never have.
I've got friends from all walks of life. I said this on another podcast, and it always sounds like a political statement, but the push towards polarization, it's so frustrating. If there's one thing that's discouraging to me as I get older each year, I'm like, wow, are we ever going to get out of this polarization? Speaking of which, how are you going to vote for the presidential election?
I'm still trying to figure out how to interview the people involved and do it well. What do you think the role of podcasts is going to be in this year's election?
I would love long-form conversations to happen with the candidates. I think it's going to be huge. I would love Trump to go on Rogan. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I would love to... Honestly, we'd love to see Joe Biden go on Joe Rogan also. I would imagine that both would go on, but separately.
Separately, I think it's... I think a debate... Joe does debates, but I think Joe at his best is one-on-one conversation, really intimate. I just wish that Joe Biden would actually do long-form conversations. I thought he had done a... I think it was on... Jay Shetty's podcast. He did Jay Shetty.
He did a few, but when I mean long form, I mean really long form, like two, three hours and more relaxed. It was much more orchestrated because what happens when the interview's a little bit too short, it becomes into this generic political type of NBC, CNN type of interview. You get a set of questions and you don't get to really feel the human.
expose the human to the light in the full, we talked about the shadow, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So I think there's something magical about two, three, four hours.
But it doesn't have to be that long, but it has to have that feeling to it where there's not people standing around and everybody's nervous and you're going to be strictly sticking to the question and answer type of feel, but just shooting shit, which Rogan is the best by far in the world at that.
i don't think people really appreciate how skilled he is at what he does and the number i mean the three or four podcasts per week press plus the ufc announcing plus comedy tours and stadiums plus um you know doing comedy shows in the middle of the week plus you know, a husband and a father and a friend in jujitsu. The guy's got like superhuman levels of output.
I agree that long form conversation is a whole other business. And I think that people want and deserve to know the people that are running for office in a different way. and to really get to know them. Well, listen, you know, I guess you, I mean, is it clear that he's going to do jail time or maybe he gets away with a fine?
Because I was going to say, I mean, does that mean you're going to be podcasting from jail?
In prison, yeah. We're going to, in fact, I'm going to figure out how to commit a crime so I can get in prison. Please don't. Please don't. Well, that's, I'm sure they have visitors, right?
That just doesn't feel an authentic way to get the interview, but yeah, I understand. Yeah. You wouldn't be able to wear that suit. You'd be wearing a different suit. That's true. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. And you do, I'm not just saying this because you're my friend, but you would do a marvelous job.
I think you should sit down with all of them separately to keep it civil and see what happens. Here's one thing that I found really interesting in this whole political landscape. When I'm in Los Angeles, I often get invited to these like
They're not dinners, but gatherings where a local bunch of podcasters will come together, but a lot of people from the entertainment industry, big agencies, big tech, like big, big tech. Many of the people have been on this podcast. And they'll host a discussion or a debate. And what you find if you look around the room and you talk to people is that about half the people in the room
are very left-leaning and very outspoken about that. And they'll tell you exactly who they want to see win the presidential race. And the other half will tell you that they're for the other side. A lot of people that... people assume are on one side of the aisle or the other are in the exact opposite side.
Now, some people are very open about who, who they're for, but it's been very interesting to see how, um, when you get people one-on-one, they're like telling you they want X candidate to win or Y candidate to win. And sometimes I'm like, really? I can't believe it. Like you like, yep. And so it's what people think about, um, people's political leanings is often exactly wrong.
And that's been eye-opening for me. And I've seen that in university campuses too. And so it's gonna be really, really interesting to see what happens in November.
In addition to that, as you said, most people are close to the center, despite what Twitter makes it seem like. Most people, whether they're center left or center right, they're kind of close to the center.
Yeah, I mean, here's, to me, the most interesting question. Who is gonna be the next... big candidate in years to come. Who's that going to be? Right now, I don't see or know of that person.
Who's it going to be? The young promising candidates, we're not seeing them. Another way to ask that question, who would want to be?
Well, that's the issue, right? Who wants to live in this 12-hour news cycle where you're just trying to dunk on the other team so that nobody notices the shit that you fucked up? That's not only not fun or interesting, it also is just like, it's gotta be psychosis inducing at some point. And I think that
you know, God willing, we're going to, you know, some young guy or woman is like on this and refuses to back down and was just like determined to be president and we'll make it happen. But like, I don't even know who the viable candidates are. Maybe you, Lex, you know. We should ask Sagar. Sagar would know.
Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe Sagar himself. Sagar's show is awesome. Yeah, it is. He and Crystal do a great thing. He's incredible. Especially since they have somewhat divergent opinions on things. That's what makes it so cool. He's great. He looks great in a suit. Looks real sexy. He's taking real good care of himself. I think he's getting married soon. Congratulations, Sagar.
Forgive me for not remembering your future wife's name.
He won my heart by giving me a biography of Hitler as a present. That's what he gave you?
Yeah.
I gave you a hatchet. With a poem inscribed.