The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 211: Dr. Andrew Huberman: The Real Reason You're Always Exhausted & Have No Dopamine!
Fri, 02 May 2025
You’re not lazy - you’re depleted. Andrew Huberman reveals how the hustle culture of chasing constant highs is depleting your brain’s dopamine reserves. In this powerful moment, discover why rest isn't laziness, and how to manage your energy for long-term focus, drive, and performance. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify - https://g2ul0.app.link/CdOTZdJl1Sb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/kv06yZwl1Sb Watch the Episodes On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What role does dopamine play in motivation and energy?
we can, again, look at things through the lens of biology and say, well, what are we talking about when we're talking about energy? What is this energy thing that people are talking about? And I think it largely boils down to these catecholamines, the dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine cocktail that is setting the brain into a mode of attention, of motivation.
We now know dopamine is more about motivation to seek rewards as opposed to feeling of pleasure or reward. There's a lot to be said about that. And keep in mind that these three neurochemicals, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, have been the neurochemical cocktail by which humans and other mammals have set and pursued goals for hundreds of thousands of years.
So we don't have like a unique system, a unique neurochemical system for seeking out of mates versus food versus creating shelter versus creating technology and whole societies. And it's not just these three neurochemicals. Certainly there are other things involved, acetylcholine and a bunch of other things, neuroplasticity for that matter.
But it's clearly the case that the currency that the brain has set around getting us into forward center of mass, as I say, to like envision something, explore. Nope, not down there, this way. Ah, there's a scent here. And trade out an actual scent for, oh, there's something interesting here. There's someone interesting here. And like exploring that, no, that's a dead path too.
Cul-de-sac, turn around, go, oh, here. And then connecting these nodes of progress. What's progress? Ah, there's kind of another surge of these catecholamines, which sets us in forward center of mass.
You know, I don't want to oversimplify the biology, but when we talk about energy, for instance, taking time to rest at night, sleep, taking time to maybe meditate a few minutes or do this practice that I'm a huge fan of, non-sleep deep rest, which is kind of a body scan, deep relaxation, long exhales.
It's a practice very similar to an ancient practice called yoga nidra, which has been practiced for thousands of years. It's a kind of pseudo sleep. And we know from a really nice study that NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, aka yoga nidra, can increase the baseline levels of dopamine in a brain area called the basal ganglia, which is for...
action generation and also withholding action by about 60% from baseline, just a short period of doing this practice can kind of re-up dopamine levels to a considerable extent. It's a remarkable study and there are others like it. So what does that mean? Well, it means that in rest, we build up this capacity to be forward center of mass when we emerge from rest.
That's why I think we have to sleep every 24 hours. This is why practices where we deliberately calm ourselves and still ourselves allow us to be more forward center of mass mentally and physically afterwards. It's kind of a duh. When we hear it, we kind of go, oh, duh, of course, rest, action, rest, action. But there's a lot more to it.
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Chapter 2: How does rest and non-sleep deep rest affect dopamine levels?
So taking everything you know about dopamine and how it works, if you were giving me advice on how I could be a better entrepreneur, podcaster, whatever, the first thing I got from you was really about this idea of transitioning between states and also allowing time for my reserves to replenish after a high dopamine activity. Is there anything else that I should be thinking about?
Yeah, so we could operationalize this in a very clear way. Get enough sleep for you. For some people, it's six hours. For some people, it's eight hours. I'd like to dispel the myth, even though my friend Matt Walker will probably get upset at me for saying this. Not everyone needs eight or nine hours of sleep, okay? I got six last night, okay? I actually went to bed at midnight last night.
Oh, excuse me. I got six hours and 45 minutes last night. I went to bed at midnight, which is kind of late for me. Woke up at 6.45. But get enough sleep. If you wake up in the morning and you can't get more sleep for whatever reason, can't fall back asleep or you have to get out of bed, if you do not feel rested, I recommend doing a 10 or 20-minute non-sleep deep rest or yoga nidra protocol.
They are available zero cost on YouTube. You could put NSDR My Name. If you want to listen to me do one, you could put NSDR Kelly Boys does wonderful yoga nidras. She has a very pleasant voice if you prefer a female voice. There's some wonderful yoga nidras by a woman named Kamini Desai. Anyway, these are all zero cost scripts that are available on YouTube. What is that? So non-sleep deep breaths,
You did one today.
I did one today on the way here. Okay. Yeah. Here's what we know it does. Replenishes baseline levels of dopamine in the basal ganglia. Prepares you for action, both mental and physical action. Can indeed help offset some of the sleep that maybe you didn't get, but you needed. We know that the brain goes into a kind of pseudo sleep in this state.
And there's also some evidence that yoga nidra and similar practices can improve rates of learning. Okay, so that's sort of the benefits. What is it? It involves what most people will call meditation, but it's different than meditation. You lie down, you could do it seated as well, but you lie down, eyes closed, and you do long exhale breathing.
When we exhale, we actually slow our heart rate down. I could talk about how this is. This is through respiratory sinus arrhythmia. This is a relationship between the vagus nerve and the beating of the heart. But in any case, when we inhale, our heart actually speeds up its beat slightly. And when we exhale, it slows down its beat slightly. So it involves a lot of long exhale breathing.
It involves a body scan where you deliberately relax different aspects of your body. So first your feet, then your legs, then your hands. It's sort of a body scan of sorts with long exhale breathing. And it takes you into a state that's pseudo sleep. You're somewhere between sleep and awake. Now, the beauty of NSDR and yoga nidra is that part of the instruction at the beginning is to stay awake.
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