It Sucks for 3 Days But It Makes Waking Up Early Effortless - Dr Andrew Huberman

Duration: 12:14 2412 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Dr. Andrew Huberman explains that becoming a consistent early riser involves shifting one's biological mechanisms, a process he describes as taking about three days of discomfort before it becomes effortless for most people. While some individuals are genetically predisposed to be "night owls" due to specific polymorphisms that make them feel best sleeping late and waking up midday, the majority fall into typical or morning categories. To successfully phase-advance one's circadian clock from a later schedule to an earlier one, Huberman emphasizes stacking four primary zeitgebers, or timekeepers: bright light exposure, exercise, caffeine intake, and social rhythms. The most powerful method is viewing bright sunlight immediately upon waking; this should be done without sunglasses if possible, though corrective lenses are acceptable, while blinking naturally to avoid eye strain. The second critical component is movement or exercise, which acts as a potent zeitgeber when combined with morning light exposure. Huberman notes that even simple activities like jumping jacks, skipping rope, or walking outside facing the sun help entrain the circadian clock more effectively than isolated efforts. Caffeine serves as the third tool to enhance alertness and support this shift; while it is not strictly necessary for everyone, those who exercise immediately upon waking often find they need caffeine within 30 minutes of rising rather than waiting an hour or two. He also mentions that eating a meal can further entrain the clock, though he personally prefers delaying his first intake until noon to manage hunger naturally alongside hydration and stimulation from light and movement. Social interaction forms the fourth pillar of circadian entrainment, as interacting with others helps synchronize one's internal rhythm to external cues. Huberman highlights that dogs possess the same intrinsic photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) found in humans and other mammals, meaning a morning walk with a dog effectively stacks light exposure, physical movement, and social interaction simultaneously. He notes that this system is evolutionarily ancient, originating from bacterial opsins similar to those in insect eyes, making it impossible to "biohack" away regardless of lifestyle changes or supplements. The circadian clock naturally runs on an intrinsic rhythm slightly longer than 24 hours (approximately 24.2 or 24.3 hours), which causes a drift toward later waking times without external cues like sunlight, explaining why environments with constant darkness result in delayed sleep cycles similar to the effects of traveling to places like Las Vegas. To maintain this new morning schedule and prevent falling asleep too late at night, Huberman introduces the concept of "Netflix inoculation," derived from a 2022 study published in *Science Reports*. This involves viewing sunlight for just five minutes during the afternoon or before sunset, ideally looking toward the setting sun to adjust retinal sensitivity. This brief exposure reduces the melatonin-suppressing effects of artificial bright light encountered later at night by about 50%, allowing individuals to engage with screens like Netflix without severely disrupting their sleep quality. Conversely, those wishing to become night owls should view bright light between 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. to phase-delay their clock. Ultimately, Huberman concludes that while social factors play a role in shift work definitions involving cognitive activity after 9:00 p.m., the core biological imperative remains our dependence on these natural cycles for neuroplasticity, memory consolidation, and restorative sleep.

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how can people become a morning person or learn to get up early more easily and more regularly yeah um three days of pain the rest is easy so it takes about three days to shift the biological mechanisms to uh make you a morning person now if you are a very strongly genetically determined Night Owl that's a thing that's a thing so there are genetic mutations they call them polymorphisms that make some people night owls they feel best psychologically and physically going to sleep at about 1: 2 or 3:00 a.m. and waking up somewhere around you know 10 11 am or noon that exists not just during development or teen years but that exists not just for social reasons other people are true morning people they feel absolutely best going to sleep around 8:00 p.m. or 900 p.m. 10: p.m. would be late for them and they feel great waking up at 4:00 5 or 6:00 a.m. okay most people feel best going to sleep somewhere between 10: and midnight and waking up somewhere between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. or so maybe 5:30 to 8:00 a.m. okay so those are three bins of the Night Owl the morning person and then the more typical schedule but it's heavily weighted toward that typical schedule if you look at the general population so if somebody wants to get up earlier you need to stack the four primary what are called zeit gers or timekeepers so named because some of the early chronobiologists that discovered this this stuff and the underlying mechanisms were German as it were so the number one zeit Gaber the number one way to shift your circadian clock which is this cluster of neurons that sits a few centimeters above the roof of your mouth is to view bright light at a time when you want to be awake aka the morning okay so that's why I say get outside look at the sun toward the sun don't force yourself to stare at it don't damage your eyes blink as needed no sunglasses eye glasses corrective lenses contacts are absolutely fine even if they have UV protection okay however if you combine that with another zeit Gaber the second most powerful zeit Gaber is exercise or movement so if you do some jumping jacks you skip some rope or even just take a walk while facing the sun now you're starting to stack different zeit gers and I'll explain the mechanisms in a moment if you then also add caffeine now this spits in the face a little bit of what I said a few minutes ago but if you were to add caffeine you can entrain as it's called the circadian clock to be alert at that time a bit more and I'll be honest if I'm going to exercise first thing in the morning I need caffeine I can't wait that 60 to 90 minutes if I need to jump right into exercise I find it's easiest for me to do 30 minutes after waking three hours after waking or 11 hours after waking and a lot of people find that the same but of course exercise when you can because it's that important but if you want to quot and optimize your energy levels for exercise typically people will notice that has to do with your temperature Rhythm Okay so we've got sunlight we've got exercise or movement of any kind it could be jumping jacks could be walking you don't have to do a full workout and then caffeine and in some cases food I'm not big on eating first thing in the morning I don't like to eat until 11: a.m. or noon that's when my first meal arrives for me just naturally that's when I get hungry it's all caffeine and hydration prior to that but if you were to eat something first thing in the morning you that's part of the way you entrain your circadian clock to wake up to essentially wake you up earlier and then the fourth one is a social Rhythm if you're interacting with other people you're going to entrain your clock to that as well way yes so there's a socially there's a social component to circadian entrainment now the pathways for these are from the eye in the case of viewing light to the circadian clock the supermatic nucleus in the case of caffeine it's more General in the case of exercise there's literally a brain stem to circadian clock connection a big super highway of neuronal connections that then So-Cal entrains your circadian clock remember your circadian clock generates an intrinsic 24-hour Rhythm such that if we put you into constant dark or constant light you would still sleep for a given bout and then be alert for a given bout with a little bit of a nap it just is what would call free run it would drift a little later each day this is what happens when you go to Vegas this is what happens when you're in an environment without a lot of cues about the day uh the sunlight uh rising and setting cycle sunlight exercise caffeine and eating and social interactions bring your circadian clock into alignment with all of those zit gers so when I said it takes three days if tomorrow you want to start beginning the process of becoming an early riser you'd set your alarm for 5:00 a.m. no matter what time you went to sleep the night before you're going to get up and you're going to do the four things that I described maybe leave out food if you don't want to eat maybe leave out caffeine if you want to delay by 90 minutes it's going to hurt and then by the early afternoon you'll be dragging a bit and you just have to be careful to not overindulge in caffeine which will then cause you to fall asleep later then you want to go to sleep at your now naturally slightly earlier sleep time the next day you'll notice you'll it'll be a little bit easier to do the morning routine I just described and by the third day you ought to be waking up with or before the Alarm by a few minutes or moments because your circadian clock has phase shifted okay it's phase Advanced as we say your circadian clock intrinsic to you generates a 24.2 or a 24.3 hour Rhythm it's not perfectly 24 hours and that we believe we don't know but the just so story is that it's that it's such that that you're able to then shift that clock in in one or the other direction you can phase advance so you wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier you can phase delay how do you phase delay well you're probably doing this already everyone nowadays pretty much qualifies as a shift worker by the strict and not so strict criteria of shift work which is are you doing any kind of cognitive activity after 9:00 p.m. are you viewing any kind of bright lights after 9:30 p.m. most people would say yes so the the Diabolical thing about the Circadian Timing System is that it requires a lot of bright light ideally from sunlight but a lot of bright light early in the day to make you a morning and daytime person but it requires just a little bit of bright light even from an artificial Source after the hours of about 9:30 p.m. till 4:00 a.m. to quash your Mel tonin make it difficult to sleep or if you sleep to make that sleep not as effective there's a simple remedy however which is and this is a beautiful study publishing science reports in 2022 if you view sunlight in the afternoon even for five minutes or so could be late afternoon could be sunset take off your sunglasses look in the direction of the Sun so now looking West you adjust the sensitivity of your retina the neurons in the back of your eye such that bright light later at night doesn't have quite as much effect to suppress melatonin and it reduces the Melatonin suppressive Effects by about 50% or offsets those so I think of this afternoon viewing as well first of all it's nice to look at a sunset if you're indoors in environment like this even if there are bright lights on get outside for a few minutes before the sun sets this is especially important in Winter even if you can't see the Sun as an object get some sun light in your eyes and that will at least partially offset the effects of bright light light in your eyes at night partially and I refer to this more or less as your Netflix inoculation so that that night you can be on your phone or watch Netflix and it's not going to disrupt your sleep as much but it will still disrupt your sleep somewhat but let's you know unless like Rick rubin's very diligent about wearing the red lens classes I've started doing that as well um but if you don't do that you I'm guessing he also sees the sunset in the evening um he's very attached for good scientific reasons uh to the sunlight thing but these are little things that take just moments right they're essentially zero cost that can really improve your sleep but that's how you become a morning person if you want to become a night person you do the opposite you view bright light between the hours of 400 p.m. and 10 p.m. and there then you will phase delay or phase shift in a delayed way your circadian clock making you want to wake up later the next morning I wonder if dogs count as uh social interaction absolutely and they have all of the same mechanisms we just described so I just thinking how can we stack that everything first thing in the morning morning walk you if you're in a place that's not Iceland or somewhere that's super high North dog social interaction moving around and then caffeine if you do or if you don't if you don't want it but uh if you have a dog that likes to run you're even better off CU it'll force you to run if you have if you have an English bulldog like I did you'd be lucky if you get out of bed by their eyes are droopy they don't and um uh they don't like to move but it is the case that dogs will naturally Orient toward the sun you know and people always ask you know do dogs have the same mechanisms absolutely intrinsically photosensitive retinal gangling cells the one that project to the clock and carry all of this um thing about circadian entrainment to sunlight are present as far as we know in every extent Mamon species every Mamon species that's that's alive today um and you know this is a system that evolved from bacteria that's very similar to the opsin the light absorbing molecules that are in the insect eye it's a very primordial system it's organized very differently anatomically in the retina and to me it's actually one of the more beautiful systems in in all of us in fact the one thing that no one can seem to defeat you're never going to biohack away is circadian biology this this you know fluctu 24-hour fluctuation in energy and focus you know some people require less sleep but we we're all um more or less a slave to these mechanisms and you know it's a good thing that we are because it forces us to rest neuroplasticity occurs during sleep it push down adenosine you know it takes us through these natural es and cycles of cognition I'm obsessed by the idea that in sleep you know the conscious mind obviously is not in control the unconscious mind can geyser up thoughts the brain is organizing things more in terms of symbols time and space are very uh very organized very differently in dreams and there's a lot of information to be gleaned from dreams it's just that we don't yet understand what the symbols mean the kind of classic Freudian yian um interpretations are certainly not going to be complete but you know I I'm so grateful that we get this thing called sleep and I think thanks to the great Matt Walker We Now understand that the whole thing of all sleep would I'm dead is a really dumb mindset and you know my team at The hubman Lab podcast we sometimes joke that we win by sleeping you know when we're in the peak of things we all encourage each other to like get rest you know get rest like we really prioritize sleep traveling should be about the journey not the chaos of packing which is why I have been using nomatic backpack and carryon Pro for over a year now this thing is the best backpack on the planet I did an entire month on tour on just hand luggage alone it's like the Swiss army knife of travel pack they've got pockets for your laptop your clothes your snacks it is so well organized that even your toothbrush feels important and the amount of thought that they've put into every pouch and zipper is is 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