Video summary
Dr. Andrew Huberman distinguishes between two primary forms of burnout, both rooted in cortisol dysregulation but manifesting differently over time. The first form is characterized by a cycle where individuals feel exhausted upon waking and rely heavily on caffeine to function until late afternoon when they finally catch up with their energy levels before struggling to sleep; this pattern repeats daily. Huberman describes this state as being "wired but tired." In contrast, the second form involves chronically elevated cortisol that remains high throughout the day in a manner resembling a square wave function. He notes that he experienced this specific type of burnout during his post-doctoral years between ages 30 and 35 before realizing he could not sustain such levels indefinitely. Huberman emphasizes that entrepreneurs often face similar walls, even citing figures like David Goggins and Cam Ayres who eventually needed to address their sleep issues despite previously maintaining high performance. To prevent or manage these conditions, Huberman advises individuals to identify when they would naturally wake up and go to sleep if given total control over their schedule. The core strategy involves treating the first three to six hours of the day as "go time," utilizing bright light exposure, hydration, exercise, and caffeine strategically to push into the active part of the day. Conversely, the last two hours should be reserved for doing the opposite: dimming lights significantly, stopping caffeine intake at least eight hours before sleep, limiting non-essential hydration unless dehydrated, and engaging in long exhale breathing exercises. These actions are designed to lower cortisol levels while raising melatonin production. Huberman highlights a study published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* showing that even dim overhead lighting (100 lux) can abnormally elevate morning glucose because cortisol mobilizes glucose through closed eyelids, suggesting rooms should be darkened to one or three lux—essentially candlelight levels—to properly regulate these hormones. The discussion also touches upon the impact of technology and light sensitivity on sleep quality. While some studies suggest screen light disrupts sleep variably depending on individual retinal sensitivity, Huberman stresses that blue-blocking red lens glasses are beneficial for those sensitive to short-wavelength light. He shares a personal anecdote about watching an extended interview with Donald Trump late at night before falling asleep within the last fifteen minutes, admitting he broke his own protocol of keeping screens off in the final hour. This incident underscores how stimulating content can interfere with sleep onset. Furthermore, Huberman reflects on Matt Walker's appearance on Joe Rogan nearly a decade ago, which effectively "scared people straight" about the dangers of sleep deprivation by detailing horrific prison conditions and biological realities like boiling sugar syrup poured over prisoners or batteries placed in socks to induce pain. This shift in public awareness helped move society away from viewing sleep as an obstacle to productivity toward recognizing it as essential for health. Chronic stress is defined not merely by a single bad night's sleep but by the disruption of the cortisol curve, specifically when late-day spikes fail to subside over three to five consecutive days. Huberman explains that the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, is densely packed with cortisol receptors because cortisol can cross the blood-brain barrier unlike adrenaline. Prolonged exposure to elevated cortisol engages and eventually deteriorates these memory structures. However, he offers reassurance that all systems involved in this process are recoverable if one avoids panic over occasional imperfections. He argues that the stress of trying to be perfect often harms individuals more quickly than their actual flaws do. To aid recovery, Huberman suggests a variety of non-supplement interventions and natural compounds such as magnesium glycinate (referred to as mag 3), L-theanine, chamomile extract, saffron, tart cherry juice for apigenine content, lemon balm, skullcap, eye of nectar, and ashwagandha. He also mentions experimenting with a peptide that regenerates pinealocytes in rodent studies, noting his own formulation provided double the REM sleep but caused overly elaborate dreams at higher doses. The conversation concludes with practical advice on maintaining agency over one's health rather than relying solely on pharmaceuticals or extreme measures. Huberman acknowledges that while prescription drugs have their place for specific conditions, many people overlook natural aids like magnesium and herbal extracts which can nudge the body toward better sleep without side effects. He also promotes a new temperature-regulating duvet system from Eight Sleep called the Pod 5 Ultra, noting its ability to cool or warm each side of the bed by up to twenty degrees to prevent overheating or chilling during rest. The device includes biometric sensors for health checks like heart rate variability and an integrated speaker for white noise or audio content. Huberman highlights that this system has been clinically proven to increase total sleep time by up to one hour per night, offering a thirty-day trial period with international shipping options available through the provided link and discount code.
Read the full video transcript
What about the relationship between
cortisol and burnout? Uh, you know, you
talked about sustained, chronically
elevated cortisol, but I've also heard
you talk about, uh, burnout is basically
being wrongly timed cortisol over time.
That's stretched out. What What have you
come to learn about handling burnout?
Somebody feels that sense. So, I feel
like I'm sort of close to that. What's
going on? And, and how can they try to
intervene in that?
>> So, there seem to be two general forms
of burnout. One is the I'm exhausted in
the morning and I just can't get into
gear and then it's like caffeine,
caffeine, caffeine, exhausted it and
then late day, okay, finally, you know,
the I caught the wavefront and then I'm
having trouble sleeping and then the
whole thing repeats.
>> Wired but tired.
>> Wired but tired. The other form of
burnout is where people just it's like
they're cortisol is like a square wave
function. It just up in the morning and
all day long. I it's sort of how I would
describe my graduate school years
probably undergraduate graduate school
years posttock I think I hit a wall
during my posttock years so that was you
know uh that would be uh you know 30 to
35 and then at some point you realize
you just can't keep this going and I
think most entrepreneurs feel that way
at some point you're just like I I can't
do this I mean even the the David
Gogggins and the uh Cam Haynes is they
they they do sleep right they get sleep
eventually so I think the main way to
think about burnout and exhaustion is to
ask oneself, okay, if I had total
control, when would I naturally wake up?
When would I naturally go to sleep? Like
what would be my preferred times to do
that? And then whatever your wake up
time is to really treat that first 3 to
6 hours of your day as go time and to do
the things bright light, hydration,
exercise, caffeine, etc. that really
push you into the day. But then really
essentially doing all the opposite
things that you do in the morning in the
last ideally four, but most people won't
do that. Last 2 hours of your day, dim
the lights. Caffeine, forget it. You
should have halted that probably 8 hours
before sleep. Um, limit your hydration,
right? Unless you're dehydrated, limit
your hydration. Um, you know, long
exhale breathing, anything that can
bring your cortisol levels down and
bring your melatonin levels up, which is
why we we're so bullish about dimming
the lights later in the day. And you
know, we were talking about the red lens
glasses to block out short wavelength
light, which by the way, a lot of people
um have said, well, you know, the study
is showing that screen light disrupts
sleep. Very variable between people.
People have different levels of retinal
sensitivity. So, how how much screen
light will disrupt their sleep. But it's
not just about sleep. There's a
beautiful study published in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences that
showed that people who sleep in a room
with an overhead light of 100 lux, which
is extremely dim, show abnormally
elevated morning glucose levels. Makes
perfect sense. Cortisol mobilizes
glucose. And this is through closed
eyelids. Okay? So, you have to get the
light down to maybe one to three locks.
And you say one to three locks, like
it's basically dark, dark, dark. A
[snorts] a candle light very is very
low. A bright full moon where you say,
"Oh, it's so bright out," is actually
only about 1 to five lux. So, we think
of these sources as very bright, but
nature set us up to have bright mornings
and dim dark nights. And some people
will say, "Well, there's no light where
I live." You know, like, listen, you
don't need to see the sun as a as a
delineated object. If you compare how
bright it is, let's just say even in the
dead of winter in the UK at 9:00 a.m.
walking uh in a place with no artificial
lighting outside, no street lamps versus
midnight the night before in the same
location, you'd say you can navigate in
the one case without any artificial
lighting, without a what we call
flashlight, you call a torch. But in any
case, the the idea is that there's there
are a lot of photons coming through and
you want all of that early in the day
and you just want to do the inverse in
the last part of the day. So, I think to
avoid overwhelming people because people
have so much to do and think about, get
the first hour of your day right. Get
the last hour of your day right and
you'll greatly improve this morning
cortisol peak, late day cortisol
reduction, which is what you want. And
you'll get your natural clearing out of
any melatonin that happens to be in your
system because bright light quashes
melatonin through a different pathway
but that also originates with the eyes
goes through the super kaismatic nucleus
and a couple other relays to your pineal
shuts down melatonin production and then
late in the day you just make it dimmer
darker darker darker and you bring up
your melatonin you bring down your
cortisol. But if you think about what's
happened with screens that it's
stimulating. I think late last night I
made the mistake of I watched a extended
60 minutes interview. I actually fell
asleep to it.
>> Is it the Petro Tier one?
>> No, it was the Trump one.
>> Okay.
>> I was curious. I hadn't heard an
interview with him for a long time and
it was it was sort of combative but
there it was an interesting one and I
was um curious to see how that would go
and um I fell asleep in about the last
15 minutes but that I wouldn't recommend
doing that. Normally it would be screens
off in the last hour. I just,
>> you know, I got a I got a little loose
with my protocols.
>> Yeah, we've been I've seen you talking
about daylight savings, time changes and
stuff like that.
>> This has been nearly a decade now since
Matthew Walker was first on Rogan. I
think it was nearly almost 10 years ago
and I was still a club promoter at the
time. And up until then, I just assumed
that sleep was
>> it's just like this thing that got in
the way of me working. It was just this
[ __ ] And honestly,
>> when your 20s, that's kind of true.
>> You're made of rubber and magic, dude.
You know what I mean? caffeine and big
dreams and cellar tape and cable ties.
You just [ __ ] like strung together
with this stuff. Anyway, he came on and
basically did the scare them straight
equivalent. Do you ever have that in
school? Scare them straight. So, they
bring a prison officer in and he tells
you about how horrible life is in
prison. All of the horror stories that
>> What? How old are you when you
>> like 12, 13? And uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
and he's saying, you know, they put
boiling water into um a cup and mix
loads of sugar in it and it's syrup and
they throw it on people and then they
have batteries and they put them in
socks and I remember he hit this sock
filled with batteries down on the table
and it made me jump and I was like [ __ ]
like I really don't want to go to it.
Honestly, it worked for me my particular
psychological makeup that thing abs I
don't think I was the sort of person
that was probably going to go to jail
anyway. Um but yeah uh I learn sleep is
okay really really important. You've
been talking about daylight savings. The
more that I learn about it, the effects
of sleep deprivation are just
terrifying. It's just everything gets
broken. Yeah. I mean, sleep is the
ultimate reset. We could talk about some
of the newer data that point to exactly
why. I will say just, you know, for uh
people's peace of mind, if you don't
spike your cortisol for a couple days in
a row, you get one poor night's sleep
for a couple days in a row, you're going
to be fine. the the human body and brain
evolved under conditions that were
extreme, right? New parents will tell
you how difficult sleep can be. I mean,
you can pull it off. The the thing that
we call chronic stress is frankly when
that cortisol curve gets disrupted in
any number of ways, but typically it's
late day cortisol spikes that don't come
back down afterwards for three, four,
five days in a row. Your hippocampus,
this memory center in the brain, is
chalk block full of cortisol receptors.
And cortisol unlike adrenaline can pass
through the bloodb brain barrier. All
right? So it it has a number of docking
sites that allow it to engage the memory
system. You know what stress will engage
your memory system, but that over time
will start to deteriorate these
structures. So if somebody hasn't been
sleeping well, you know, I'm not just
saying this to make them feel better.
You don't want to send them into a
panic.
>> Um,
>> and all of these systems can be
recovered. Uh,
>> you know, when Matt went on Rogan, I
think it was an important like truly
important He was talking I'll say it was
seinal like he has saved that one
episode has probably saved
>> thousands of years if not hundreds of
thousands of years of combined human
life.
>> Yeah. Oh, I agree. I mean I think that
the um the challenge and I think that
Matt would say this. I'm sort of
borrowing his words is that he
sufficiently scared everybody. There
were fewer things to offered to do to
promote good sleep at that time
>> and there were more of a lot of like
here's what happens if you don't sleep.
Mhm. Yeah. The stress of trying to be
perfect will kill you more quickly than
your imperfections. That like over
optimizer obsessor thing.
>> And you want to give people a sense of
of real agency, right? Yeah. Dimming the
lights if you're light sensitive in
particular and you know limiting
caffeine. I mean all the things that are
sort of obvious to us now. The morning
sunlight thing. I think most people
don't tether to their sleep because it's
not obvious how doing something in the
first hour of your day to be more alert
and spike cortisol uh creates a
situation you know 14 hours later where
you are a better sleeper. So you know
over time I mean Matt's started to adopt
that. I mean I think he he also pointed
out the detriments of alcohol and
cannabis on sleep which I you know which
I echo. Um, I think also if you think
just back even six years, seven years,
we weren't aware of the number of
over-the-counter compounds that can be
helpful for sleep. You know, people were
still thinking about drugs, prescription
drugs for sleep, which, you know, have
their place for certain people, but most
people hadn't considered mag 3 and8,
theine, chamomile. Now I would add to
that um saffron
um tart cherry we know we can increase
>> apagenine and chamomile extract. Yeah
similar um
>> lemon bomb
>> lemon bomb skull cap. You know it sounds
kind of crazy, right? It sounds like
we're we're behind the counter at some
like magazine shop, right?
>> Eye of nes and a [ __ ] wizard tail,
right? I mean, I didn't come here to do
an AGZ plug, but I basically I've I've
played around with a number of different
nonsupplement things for sleep over the
years cuz I'm an experimentter um in and
out of the lab. And um I mean, I can
tell you a wild story from high school
where the girl sitting behind me, I
remember her name, it was Aaron
Crrenard. Um her her mom uh had some
tablets, some Chinese medicine tablets,
and I took one. She's because I was
having some issues sleeping and she gave
me one and I the whole night I was wide
awake hearing music blaring from behind
my head and I think I was in a pseudo
sleep state
>> thought I was away I was like that's
really scary but it I was like wow there
are compounds that really work for for
sleep and then um
>> you know there are things like the the
peptide pineal I experimented with a bit
um not a not a lot of human studies at
all um some interesting rodent studies
may regenerate the pinealytes in the in
the pineal it gives gives me like 2
hours a night of REM sleep. But I will
say having completely halted pineal and
I did a short run experiment with it. I
will say that the the formulation that's
in AGZ has me sleeping with double the
amount of REM sleep and at least a third
more slowwave deep sleep every night.
And I can only drink about 2/3 of that
stuff before it. It's almost like too
much. Not because it's too much volume,
but because my anymore and my dreams are
just too elaborate. And you know what's
magic about it? I think it's that it has
a bunch of different things in it. So
again, I didn't come here to to plug
AGZ, but I think that they really nailed
it in the sense that in the last 10
years, the scientific community, the
health and wellness community has really
come to the conclusion that there are
things that can nudge your sleep in the
right direction. So just being told like
if you don't sleep, you're going to die
of dementia is scary. You want to give
people agency.
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