This is the second episode of Huberman Lab Essentials — short episodes (approximately 30 minutes) focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past Huberman Lab episodes. This Essentials episode offers insights into what makes us sleepy, helps us sleep soundly, and feel awake and alert. It covers a wide range of tools for anyone looking to improve their sleep and wakefulness, with the science and reasoning behind each tool explained. Essentials will be released every Thursday, and our full-length episodes will still be released every Monday. Access the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction to Huberman Lab Essentials 00:00:18 Understanding Sleep & Wakefulness 00:01:11 The Role of Adenosine & Caffeine 00:03:45 Circadian Rhythms & the Importance of Light 00:04:54 Morning Light Exposure & Cortisol 00:06:27 Sponsor: AG1 00:16:14 Evening Light Exposure & Melatonin 00:18:08: Sponsor: Eight Sleep 00:19:47 Managing Light Exposure for Better Sleep 00:28:03 The Benefits of Naps & Yoga Nidra 00:29:06 Sponsor: ROKA 00:34:38 Supplements for Sleep & Wakefulness 00:38:42 Conclusion & Final Thoughts Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the focus of Huberman Lab Essentials?
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today's podcast episode is all about sleep.
We're also going to talk about the mirror image of sleep, which is wakefulness. Now, these two phases of our life, sleep and wakefulness, govern everything about our mental and physical health. And we're not just going to talk about what's useful about sleep.
We're also going to talk about how to get better at sleeping, and that will include how to get better at falling asleep, timing your sleep, and accessing better sleep quality. In doing so, we're also going to discuss how to get more focused and alert in wakefulness.
So if you're like most people, which includes me, you have some challenges with sleep, at least every third or fifth night or so, and maybe even more often. So we're really going to go tool heavy today and talk about tools that can help you fall asleep, sleep better, and emerge from sleep feeling more rested. So what determines how well we sleep and the quality of our wakeful state?
It turns out that's governed by two forces. The first force is a chemical force. It's called adenosine. Adenosine is a molecule in our nervous system and body that builds up the longer we are awake. So if you've just slept for eight or nine or 10 really deep restful hours, adenosine is going to be very low in your brain and body.
If however, you've been awake for 10, 15 or more hours, adenosine levels are going to be much higher. Adenosine creates a sort of sleep drive or a sleep hunger. And a good way to remember this and think about adenosine is to think about caffeine. Caffeine for most people wakes them up. It makes them feel more alert. Caffeine acts as an adenosine antagonist.
What that means is that when you ingest caffeine, whether or not it's coffee or soda or tea or in any other form, it binds to the adenosine receptor. It sort of parks there, just like a car would park in a given parking slot. And therefore, adenosine can't park in that slot. Now, when caffeine parks in the adenosine receptor slot, nothing really happens downstream of that receptor.
The receptor can't engage the normal cellular functions of making that cell and you feel sleepy. So the reason caffeine wakes you up is because it blocks the sleepiness receptor. It blocks the sleepy signal. And this is why when that caffeine wears off, adenosine will bind to that receptor, sometimes with even greater, what we call affinity, and you feel the crash. You feel especially tired.
Caffeine has a lot of health benefits. It also, for some people, can be problematic for health. It can raise blood pressure, et cetera. Caffeine increases this molecule that's a neuromodulator that we call dopamine, we discussed this in episode one, which tends to make us feel good, motivated, and give us energy because
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Chapter 2: What role does adenosine play in sleep?
And again, if you curl up under the covers, then it's not going to reach these neurons, but it's remarkable the light can actually penetrate the eyelids, activate these neurons and go to the central clock. That study illustrates a really important principle of how you're built, which is you have the capacity for what are called phase advances and phase delays.
And I don't want to complicate this too much. So the simplest way to think about phase advances and phase delays is that if you see light late in the day, and in particular in the middle of the night, your brain and body, for reasons that now you understand,
will think that that's morning light, even though it's not sunlight because you have this heightened sensitivity and it will phase delay, it will delay your clock. It will essentially make you want to get up later and go to sleep later. So the simple way to think about this,
is if you're having trouble waking up early and feeling alert early in the day, you're going to want to try and get bright light exposure even before waking up, because it will advance your clock. It's sort of like turning the clock forward.
Whereas if you are having trouble waking up early, you definitely don't want to get too much light exposure or any light exposure to your eyes late in the evening and in the middle of the night, because it's just going to delay your clock more and more. And what you're trying to do is provide them anchors.
You're trying to provide them consistent, powerful anchors so that your cortisol, your melatonin, and then everything that cascades down from that, like your metabolism and your ability to learn and your sense of alertness, your dopamine, your serotonin, all that stuff is timed regularly. One of the reasons why there's so much challenge out there with focus and anxiety and depression.
There are a lot of reasons for that. But one of the reasons is that people's internal mechanisms aren't anchored to anything regular. These systems again will average, but if you can provide them consistent light anchors early in the day and in the evening and avoiding light at night, you will be amazed at the tremendous number of positive effects that can come from that.
at the level of metabolic factors, hormones, and just general feelings of wellbeing. And this is why whenever people ask me, what should I take? Which is one of the most common questions I get. What supplements should I take? What drugs should I be taking? What things should I be taking? The first question I always ask them is how's your sleep?
And 90% of the time they tell me they either have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or they don't feel rested throughout the day. A brief note about naps. Naps, provided that they're less than one ultradian cycle, provide they're 20 minutes or 30 minutes or even an hour, can be very beneficial for a lot of people.
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