Hey, what’s up?

These insights will help you upgrade and maintain your health and performance even when you’re crazy busy.

On Sundays, you’ll get:

1. A summary of the latest Huberman episode (so you can know what he said in case you missed it)

2. Some Huberman memes

3. An action for the week that you may have overlooked

Weekdays will continue to be short and action-centric.

Alright, let’s get into it.

#1 - [Premium AMA] How to improve ‘task switching’ and eliminate brain fog

The AMA episodes are only available to Huberman’s premium subs. But in my desire and effort to bring zero-cost science and science-related tools to the general public, I am sharing my notes here for free :p

Part 1:

• What task switching is

• How you can do it optimally

Your prefrontal cortex puts your attention on one thing. So if you want to eat food, your cortex sets the context and makes you do that. It chooses what’s the most important at any given moment.

But with phones and multitasking and wanting to be super productive, we often get sucked out of one context and into another one. You go from enjoying a snack to a very intense meeting in a few seconds.

We switch the context of our pre-frontal cortex quickly. And this is not good. For better productivity and brain performance, you should allow for a transition period between task A and task B.

When you finish a task (like a meeting), you need to show your brain that you are switching tasks. It signals to your prefrontal cortex that it’s time to change contexts. And this can make you way more productive on the next thing you will work on.

They did a few studies and found that a 2 to 10-minute transition period, of doing nothing, can have remarkable effects on your productivity.

But note that this is a transition of doing nothing. You shouldn’t use your phone. That’s adding more tasks.

Instead, you should reflect and plan. So you should say “Okay I just finished task #1 and now I want to move to task #2”. This sends a clear signal to your cortex.

So, next time you want to switch from task 1 to task 2, give yourself a brief transition period of not doing anything.

Part 2: Brain Fog

1. What exactly is brain fog?

It’s when you have low energy so you can’t focus. It’s actually low ‘autonomic arousal’. Meaning, your body isn’t activated enough or it’s fatigued. You might get this in the afternoon when you feel like you can’t think clearly anymore.

It's different from ADHD. In ADHD, there's an excessive autonomic arousal and you have trouble limiting your attention to one point.

2. How can you get rid of it / prevent brain fog?

• Get spectacular sleep. All the protocols after this are less important. Start by improving your sleep
  

• Do intense exercise in the morning. But limit it to 30 minutes for cardio and 60 minutes for resistance training. If you go over that, it may be why you’re getting more brain fog.
  

• Try deliberate cold exposure in the morning. You could do a cold shower or go in an ice bath. Same effects for eliminating brain fog.

3. What also causes brain fog?

• Consuming too many probiotic foods, such as AG1. When you get an excess of them, your gut releases more serotonin and GABA. These neurochemicals can make you more sleepy and relaxed.
  

• Eating a lot of food. When you eat a lot, your body diverts its energy away from your brain and toward digesting the food. So you feel groggy. Science!

4. What supplements can help?

• Creatine monohydrate. You need about 5g per day.

• Alpha GPC or L-tyrosine
  

• Modafinil and R-Modafinil but these should be prescribed by a doctor

And that’s the end of the AMA. I’ll get to the other new episodes and send them over soon.

Great job on learning ! Now let’s have some fun.

#2 Memes of the week!

#3 Action for the week

Last week I told you to consider injuries or a nagging pain that you have. Did you manage to take care of it?

I hope you did. If not, it’s alright. You may wanna call the doctor or get that physio/rehab program soon though. Now let’s move on to something else.

Huberman always talks about the importance of learning new things as you age. This keeps your neuroplasticity muscle active. So you’ll always have the ability to learn new things. Yes, learning helps you continue learning. Pretty cool.

Anyway, are you learning enough?

I know, you’re busy. You’re stressed. You don’t have the time. But don’t see this as a chore. See it as an indulgence. “I get to learn”.

I’ve always wanted to play instruments and learn a ton of new languages, sports, and crafts. But always said later. I’m sure you have too. But not anymore.

So your action for this week: Learn something new

Pull up your calendar or make it your top to-do for the weekend. Here are a few ideas.

1. Go to a hands-on class/workshop. Dancing, cooking, drawing, investing. Whatever you want.

2. Play a new sport. Sports aren’t limited to football, basketball, and soccer. These days there’s a ton of new stuff. Paddle, ping pong, pickleball, surfing. There’s nothing more joyful than being a complete beginner and slowly figuring out how to play.

3. Board games. It’s the same theme here. You’re learning new rules and challenging your brain in ways you haven’t done before. Preferably go for a new game instead of your typical one.

There are hundreds of events and gatherings happening these days. It’s a choice between going out and living or staying busy with your phone (a topic we’ll get into soon).

Now’s your chance. Trust me you only need to do one search for events near you. It’ll take you a few seconds.

Open Google or Safari, type in the activity you want to try, and add ‘near me’ to the end. You’ll find a bunch of cool people and places you can get to this week.

I know this is direct but go ahead and do that now then come back to your emails.

Really hope you do it.

Good job !

📖 What you learned this week:

1. You need a support group

2. When you want to quit, remind yourself of the goal/driving factor

3. Go outside for 10-20 minutes at noon

4. Listen to music for 10 minutes, 2-3x a week

5. and the stuff from this email

🔬 Helpful resources

• Huberman Hub Protocols: All the Huberman protocols with brief explanations

• Episode Summaries: Summaries of 100+ episodes

• Newsletter Archive: All the previous tip of the days

Action for the week: Learn something new

Bye !