Stanford neuroscientist turning brain science into daily protocols.
10 topics · 117 distinct points
2022–2026
“You want this peak in cortisol as high as possible in the first 60 minutes of your day. Everyone thinks you want low cortisol, but here's the deal. High cortisol in the early part of your day is what provides for elevated mood, focus, attention, your ability to learn. It's also what establishes low cortisol in the afternoon and at night which is a requirement for falling and staying asleep.”
2020–2026 · changed view
“how much dopamine is in our system at any one time compared to how much dopamine was in our system a few minutes ago, that dictates your so-called quality of life and your desire to pursue things. This is important. Your experience of life and your level of motivation and drive depends on how much dopamine you have relative to your recent experience. This is why when you repeatedly engage in something that you enjoy, your threshold for enjoyment goes up and up and up.”
2020–2026
“What is cortisol? We I should have mentioned this earlier. What is cortisol? Is it a stress hormone? No. It's a hormone that's released during stress. But cortisol's job is not to deal with stress. Cortisol's job is to mobilize energy in the body. When cortisol goes up, glucose is mobilized and other fuels, too.”
2020–2026 · changed view
“When we decide to focus what the brain really does is it switches on a set of circuits then all the frontal cortex and nucleus basalis and some others and it's trying to understand duration, how long something's gonna last, path, what's gonna happen, and outcome, what ultimately is gonna happen. So duration, path and outcome. You know, the events of early 2020 are a good example of this. One of the reasons why it's so exhausting to be alive in 2020, is because we are now having to pay attention to duration, path and outcome. How long is this thing gonna last? When are, you know, when are they gonna open up all businesses? Did I touch that door handle? Does it matter? You know, who are the experts? Are there any experts? You know, there are a lot of questions whereas normally, we can just move through life without having to do all that analysis.”
2021–2026 · changed view
“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 8, or 9, or 10 really deep, restful hours, adenosine is gonna 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.”
2022–2026
“I eat the same way I have for the last 25, 30 years. I try and get some protein in every meal, high quality protein. I love fruits and vegetables. I like high quality fats, so olive oil, a little bit of butter, a little bit of Parmesan cheese here and there. I don't get into the whole seed oil mess. I think you can lose neurons getting in that debate, just olive oil. Nobody debates it. A little bit of butter. That's fine with me. I do eat starches, so I'm an omnivore. I will have some bread, rye bread, sourdough bread, oatmeal, rice. Depends on how much I'm training. If I'm training more, I eat more of that stuff. If I train less, I tend to eat a little bit less of that stuff.”
2023–2024
“So I view the brain as obviously a bunch of cells and parts, etc., but I distill it down to some basic features. First of all, we have an autonomic physiology, I think we'd both agree on that, that regulates our sleepiness and wakefulness, our breathing, our heart rate, stuff that runs in the background. And then we have a lot of circuitry devoted to what I would call impulses, things that we desire, we want to move toward, repetitive behaviors, and we also have some impulses to avoid things that are putrid, painful, etc.”
2022–2023
“Here's what's fascinating: those same neural circuits are repurposed for romantic attachment in adult life. The same circuits, which shouldn't surprise us. I mean, why would the brain throw away valuable circuitry? But this whole Freudian notion that, you know, childhood attachment styles map onto adult attachment styles, that's real, that's physiological. Now, one important point, it's not one for one, in the sense that let's say you had a secure attachment to your father, let's say it's a young, a young girl, and as a baby and young child she had a secure attachment to her father and an insecure attachment to her mother. In adulthood, and let's say she's heterosexual, so in adulthood she prefers men as romantic partners. This girl grows up and you might say, well, she had a good relationship to her dad, so she's going to have a good secure attachment style in her adult heterosexual relationships. Ah, often it's not the case. They will transplant or superimpose the insecure attachment style to the mother onto male relationships, but have great relationships to female friends, for instance. So we have to be a little careful to not map one for one. That's important.”
2022–2026
“I never wanted to be really big, you know, like huge neck or giant arms or anything. I just want it to be strong, lean, some size, but nothing extreme. I'm not about the extremes and I plan to try and carry that theme forward into my 60s, 70s, 80s. I think I'll make it to 100. I don't have a whole lot of interest in going past 100, but who knows?”
2022
“Now, the important thing to understand is that it is the poison, the acetaldehyde itself, that leads to the effect of being inebriated or drunk. I think most people don't realize that, that being drunk is actually a poison-induced disruption in the way that your neural circuits work.”
