“This Is The Culmination Of Everything I Know” - Dr Andrew Huberman #1150
episodePreviously titled “Why You’re Tired, Stressed & Unfocussed (and how to fix it) - Dr Andrew Huberman #1150” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 17, 2026
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What is the live show announcement for the UK and Ireland tour?
People of the UK and Ireland, if you've listened to Modern Wisdom for a while but haven't seen me live, it isn't just a podcast on stage where you can finally see my legs. It's a show that I've spent over a year building specifically for a live audience. There are stories I've never told before, ideas I've deliberately saved for the stage, audience confessions, and a QA where I try to solve your biggest problems. Dublin has already sold out and all of the other cities aren't far behind. So if you want to see me live, head to Chris Williamson.com. Live. That's Chris Williamson.live.
How does Dr. Huberman suggest combating brain fog and low energy?
Lots of people deal with brain fog and low energy throughout the day. What's your advice for combating that?
I mean it's funny, I I'll probably end up saying this twenty times in today's conversation, but If I were to really
What simple morning and evening practices can boost cortisol rhythm for better focus?
If I had two minutes with somebody and they said, What's the thing I can do for my health? I'd say make the first hour of your day high cortisol and the last hour hour of your day low cortisol. High cortisol in the morning sets you up for elevated mood, focus, and alertness all day long, allows you to buffer stress better and it makes sure that your nighttime cortisol is going to be low. If you don't you know, spike that morning cortisol enough in the first one to three hours of your day, you're gonna have a high flat cortisol curve. Not good. Makes you less resilient to stress. brain fog, less amenable to learning and on and on. So then you just say, well, what can you do? And we make this very simple.
Uh bright light, especially from sunlight or 10,000 lux artificial light in the especially in the first 30 minutes after waking, hydration. Caffeine, if you like caffeine, exercise in the first three hours of your day if you can, right? Some people can't. And Then roll into your day. at night in that final hour, you do everything you can to reverse that. You dim the lights, especially overhead lights, dim your screen. You could do the red light thing or the candlelight thing, you know, limit caffeine, obviously exercise in the final hour before sleep only if that's the only time you can do it. Mm-hmm. Some people that's the only time. Um And actually eating in the first three hours of your day, even though I'm a fan of I personally fast in the first three hours of the day, but that actually can
Also spike cortisol. People say, why would eating spike cortisol? Well, I mean, basically anything that you do that's sort of pro-arousal that's about activity is gonna spike cortisol. So Bookending your day with things that spike your cortisol at the beginning and lower your cortisol at the end is really It really is the if there is a cheat code to life. Now, why do I say to life? I mean, is it going to make you completely stress resilient? No. Is it going to make you able to learn anything you want with ease? No. But what it does is it sets you up for the best possible sleep, which makes you more alert the next day, of course. It also It anchors this process that I haven't talked about before on any podcast, um, and frankly, that I didn't touch on directly in the book, um, which is so much of life is about balancing what we call bottom-up and top-down influences.
Bottom-up influences would be You know, um you want the cookie. You're gonna just eat the cookie. You um, you know you shouldn't be scrolling as much as you're scrolling. You just keep scrolling. That's those are bottom-up influences. These are um Impulses that are driven by hypothalamic and other deep brain structures. Then we have, thankfully, we have top-down influences. This is your prefrontal cortex suppressing impulses. Okay, this is the two marshmallow test in kids, which by the way, a lot of people say was debunked. The debunk was debunked, by the way. Yeah. So um The ability to suppress action. It's what I taught my bulldog pit mix strummer, the day I brought him home and it's the basis of everything.
You put a piece of food in front of him. He of course wants to take it, right? His prefrontal cortex isn't even online yet. And you take it away until he learns, and he learns the first day and never forgets that
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the live show announcement for the UK and Ireland tour?
0:00–0:27
2
How does Dr. Huberman suggest combating brain fog and low energy?
0:27–0:41
3
What simple morning and evening practices can boost cortisol rhythm for better focus?
0:41–9:04
4
How do top‑down and bottom‑up brain influences shape our ability to stay present?
9:04–1:19:12
5
What is the opening discussion about the limits of mind‑body approaches?
1:19:12–1:20:46
6
What are the current challenges and protocols for micro‑plastic testing and detox?
1:20:46–1:48:14
7
How does the conversation shift to nicotine, pouches, and their health impacts?
1:48:14–1:57:59
8
What is the debate around VO₂‑max versus zone‑2 training and cardio strategy?
1:57:59–2:32:27
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Modern Wisdom
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