2025-01-02
34 分钟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.
My name is Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
Let's talk about neuroplasticity.
More specifically, let's talk about how we can optimize our brains.
Neuroplasticity is this incredible feature of our nervous system that allows it to change itself, even in ways that we consciously decide.
That's an incredible property.
Our liver can't decide to just change itself.
Our spleen can't decide to just change itself through conscious thought or through feedback from another person.
The cells in those tissues can make changes, sure, but it's our nervous system that harbors this incredible ability to direct its own changes in ways that we believe or we are told will serve us better.
Today's podcast is really directed toward answering your most common questions and the bigger theme of how does one go about optimizing their brain or even think about optimizing the brain?
What is this thing that we're calling optimizing the brain?
In doing so, I'm also going to share some of my typical routines and tools.
I share them because many of you have asked for very concrete examples of what I do and when.
And so I want to open up the discussion today by emphasizing something that's fundamentally important, which is that plasticity is not the goal.
The goal is to figure out how to access plasticity and then to direct that plasticity to toward particular goals or changes that you would like to achieve.
Let's start by talking about the different systems within the nervous system that are available for plasticity.
And in doing so, I'll frame them in the context of what I do on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, and on a yearly basis.
First of all, there are several forms of plasticity.
The best way to think about it is in terms of short term, medium term, and long term plasticity.
Short term plasticity is any kind of shift that you want to achieve in the moment or in the day, but that you don't necessarily want to hold on to forever.