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[[Lex Fridman Podcast]] 139 – [[andrew-huberman]] – Neuroscience of Optimal Performance

https://pca.st/episode/119dec18-297a-4b86-8522-ab97cdb55103?t=1991 This might be the most interesting Lex Fridma Podcast episode so far.

Math requires working memory, hence young people do groundbreaking work in maths Physics, its more about deep knowledge, pull from library, so insights and breakthroughs much later in life

The liminal collective

[[Titrate caffeine doses during the day]] - can be great for productivity, intellectual performance. Different for everybody what works best. #research

Be very careful about introducing other people's sensory [[tktktk]] or thoughts early in the day. For cognitive performance it could even be beneficial to not see any other person's face even, during the first moments (hours) after waking up.

[[t.everything in the brain is an abstraction]]

[[Neuroplasticity loves a non-negotiable contract]] Firing of neurons dont always have the same waveform. Neuroscientists dont like to talk about that.

[[overcome limbic friction]]

If you can overcome the thing with the most limbic friction (what you hate the most, basically), there is carry-over. What you're excercizing is… a circuit for top-down control. If you can learn to overcome something when you are either at the most exhausted or highest arousal… if you don't quit… that stays with you.

"carry-over" is used a lot in self-help etc., but mapping it to these neural pathways… it makes some sense.

With each bout of effort, epinephrine and norepinephrine both are released in the brainstem… glia measure the levels, after a certain level the glia shut down top-down control. Meaning no more endurance, you quit. Dopamine can rescue endurance. Some people reward pain so much that limbic friction itself becomes the reward

This is a super interesting way of looking at top athletes etc., and why they endure,and their (self-induced) motivation for being so annoyingly competitive.

It's also possibly a useful model for ADHD and the way in which it can lead to giving up easily, or not even starting.

You have to learn to subjectively self-reward in a way that replenishes you

Something depression will eat away from you.

So doesn't really matter exactly what you are overcoming, you are also excercizing the circuit that overcomes limbic friction

Meaning changes with the space-time you inhabit. Focus on your family and you have tremendous meaning, zoom out on a cosmic scale and you mean nothing. There is plasticity, contraction and dilation of meaning. You can't stay with the ants or staring at the clouds, it's about going back and forth between those.

Terms interoceptive anteroceptive [[limbic friction]]

People

  • David Goggins

Books

  • Winston Churchills Nap #book

Related: [[neuroscience]] [[andrew-huberman]] also appears on [[lex fridman podcast 164 - andrew huberman - sleep, dreams, creativity, the limits of the human mind_rev2]]

lex fridman podcast - 139 - andrew huberman - neuroscience of optimal performance