The Fastest Way to Calm Your Mind Before Sleep - Dr Andrew Huberman

Duration: 10:28 2122 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Dr. Andrew Huberman addresses common challenges faced by health-conscious individuals who struggle to fall asleep despite adhering to standard sleep hygiene practices, such as avoiding late caffeine, maintaining a cool and dark room, and getting morning sunlight. He identifies that for many people, particularly those on low-starch or ketogenic diets, insufficient intake of starchy carbohydrates can lead to elevated energy levels at night, making it difficult to fall asleep deeply. Huberman shares his personal experience with brain inflammation and memory loss while following a meat-and-fruit regimen, noting that adding starches like rice, oatmeal, sourdough bread, or homemade pasta significantly improved his sleep quality without causing sluggishness during the day. He emphasizes that comfort foods should be understood as warm, starchy items rather than junk food, as these help suppress cortisol by providing circulating glucose to the brain and adrenals, reducing the need for stress-induced energy mobilization. The discussion highlights the physiological role of cortisol in managing state transitions between sleep and wakefulness, explaining that low carbohydrate intake can elevate baseline cortisol levels over time. While short-term adaptation may normalize this curve after a few weeks on a low-carb diet, sudden shifts away from starches often cause significant spikes in cortisol, leading to fragmented sleep and feelings of being "wired but tired." Huberman suggests finding a balance where individuals consume enough starchy carbohydrates throughout the day or specifically within two to three hours before bed to support deep sleep without compromising daytime cognitive function. He also advises against exercising too late or with excessive intensity at night, as this can further elevate cortisol and hinder relaxation, recommending that strenuous workouts be moved earlier in the day if possible. For those whose minds are racing due to an inability to forget their body position—a phenomenon known as proprioception—Huberman introduces a unique technique involving slow eye movements to help transition into sleep. By closing the eyes and moving them slowly side-to-side, then tracing counterclockwise and clockwise circles, followed by vertical movements and a faux cross-eyed attempt toward the bridge of the nose while exhaling, individuals can engage their vestibular system in concert with the cerebellum. This process mimics the effect of rocking on a boat or bed, signaling to the brain that body position is no longer under active control, which facilitates the shift from wakefulness to sleep. Huberman notes that this method works for many people who find themselves unable to stop thinking about physical discomforts in their beds and provides an actionable task for a racing mind without relying on vague instructions like "just relax." Huberman also touches upon other potential factors affecting sleep, such as dehydration caused by insufficient electrolytes rather than just water intake. He mentions that proper hydration involving sodium, potassium, and magnesium is critical for reducing muscle cramps, fatigue, and optimizing brain health, though he briefly promotes a specific brand of electrolyte drink without detailing its composition beyond general benefits. Additionally, he notes emerging data regarding very low-dose lithium orotate (1 milligram) as a potential supplement to encourage falling asleep faster and increasing deep sleep duration, but strongly advises consulting a doctor before trying this due to the nature of lithium. Throughout the segment, Huberman maintains that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for sleep issues, urging listeners to experiment with their nutrition, exercise timing, lighting environment, and specific behavioral techniques like eye movements to find what works best for their individual physiology.

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What would you say to people who are struggling to fall asleep that maybe they've done most of the things sort of through the day that you're supposed to? They're not taking caffeine too late at night. They're maybe having a hot shower. The room's cool. It's quiet. It's dark. They've seen some morning sunlight. But calming down a racing mind at night is a challenge that I think a lot of hard charges will deal with. >> What are some strategies for slowing that down? >> Yeah. Well, one thing that I think is really important is that if somebody's very health conscious and a hard charger, they're they're very likely eating pretty clean and one of the challenges for many people, not all, uh to falling asleep is that their starchy carbohydrate intake is just not high enough. You know, if you if you go on a very low starch diet, like let's say you just go, you know, meat, fruit, vegetables, or you go pure keto, um you'll have a lot more energy. Some people who follow that kind of regimen can sleep well. Some people like myself find that unless I have some rice or oatmeal at some point during the day, especially if I'm doing resistance training, it's actually very hard to fall and stay deeply asleep. And if I just add, you know, I guess you call it porridge, we call it oatmeal. Um, but have a a a small amount of starch in the form of whatever starch is fine for you. I I eat starches. I realize this is heretical in the in the in the health and wellness space, but um you'll have some rice or some homemade pasta or some sourdough bread or, you know, or oatmeal or something. If you're having trouble falling asleep, take a look at how much starch you're having. I don't recommend gorging yourself with starch late in the day, but having some starchy carbohydrates in your final meal, which probably comes what 2, three hours before sleep or something like that, can certainly help a number of people fall and stay asleep. I've heard that many times. I certainly know I did meat and fruit as a part of trying to fix my health because brain inflammation was really high. I was getting a lot of brain fog, memory loss. One of the things that I found that could counteract that a little bit was going very very low carb. >> Mh. >> But that also impacted my sleep and I felt wired but tired, very adrenaliney all the time. Sure. like sort of always on as if I' and my caffeine was limited as well cuz I was trying to limit stimulants and I always felt on edge sort of ambient anxiety thing and it impacted my sleep fragmentation was [ __ ] horrendous and like well can I have a rice cake or like two rice cakes an hour before I go to bed to try and sort of kink me into this a little bit and experimented with a bunch of that but yeah it's uh if you are carnivore meat and fruit keto um I wonder what the net effect is when you account for what's happening to sleep. And I'm sure that many people can sleep well on low carb of different stripes. >> But I I've one couldn't [clears throat] >> and then I'm like having to weigh this up like how how many how much carbs can I have before brain inflammation makes me feel a little bit more sluggish, more tired and well I need to have some in order to make me So that was a >> yeah it becomes a little bit of a of a devil's dance. So I mean if we return to our discussion about cortisol from earlier, cortisol's job is to deploy energy into the body and for the brain under conditions of stress or just getting up in the morning. I mean the transition from sleep to awake is a massive state shift. It's a normal healthy one but it's a massive state shift in terms of mobilization requirements and thought requirements and just the ability to linearize your your thought which is nerd speak for the ability to think not dream right or be unconscious essentially. So when you have low circulating glucose or energy stores, cortisol's job is to mobilize glucose. So when you're on a low carbohydrate diet, your baseline cortisol is a little bit higher. This actually has been examined. Okay, so here's the deal. If you're on a low carbohydrate diet for a period of time, I think in this case it was 3 weeks or more, your cortisol curve, that high in the morning, low in the afternoon, and evening kind of normalizes a bit. It's still a little bit higher at every point than it normally would be. But if you suddenly switch from eating carbohydrates, when I say carbohydrates, I mean starchy carbohydrates, okay? Well, let's leave aside sugar and fructose and etc. which of course is a form of sugar. But if you shift from a sort of standard macronutrient distribution of, you know, 40 30 or whatever it is where you're eating starches to a low carbohydrate diet, your cortisol levels go up >> significantly. This has been explored over time. time they normalize. So the I think the important thing for people to remember is when we talk about comfort foods, people have taken that that phrase to mean uh junk foods. Pizza, ice cream. Uh-uh. Those aren't the comfort foods that were originally described as comfort foods. The comfort foods that were coined comfort foods are starchy, warm foods, which guess what? Suppress cortisol. Because when those foods are available, your your brain and essentially your adrenals know that you don't have to mobilize from stored sources. it's already circulating. So, it makes perfect sense. So, I mean, this is just one kind of uh you asked for like what people could do. I think take a look at your nutrition. Are you exercising too late in the day? Can you move that to the morning? Can you You never want to tell people reduce the intensity because frankly, you know, as Dorian Yates has been saying so beautifully late uh lately, like reps in reserve are results in reserve. You know, we could talk about that. Uh um but you know I think most people are probably not pushing hard enough but some people are just pushing way too hard in the gym way too late and then their cortisol levels are elevated. Makes perfect sense why you couldn't sleep. So I would say look at look at your diet. Make sure you're getting enough starches at some point throughout the day. Maybe even taking in a few starches in the couple of hours before sleep and just see how your sleep does. There's some interesting data although you people should talk to their doctor about taking very low dose 1 milligram lithium uh I think it's the oritate form um in order to encourage the ability to fall asleep and get more deep sleep but of course we're talking about lithium here so people need definitely talk to your doctor um >> there's some other things too you know look at your lighting environment of course but I think for a lot of people the major issue with falling asleep is that they can't forget about the position of their body. And this is where the data becomes super interesting. There are some technologies that are being spun up right now, some of which I've had the opportunity to dabble with. Um, and I have no financial relationship to, but I sure wish I did because it is so cool. Imagine a sleep mask that could put you to sleep. >> Okay. >> Okay. How would it do that? Well, it turns out that eye movements are not just present during rapid eye movement sleep, but one of the prerequisites for falling asleep is that you forget about your body position. You're not like, "Oh, this is uncomfortable. that doesn't belong there. You shut down what's called propriception, your awareness of body position. So, there's actually some interesting data and here I'm cluing from a few places. I want to be fair cuz what I'm about to say sounds kind of kooky, but [snorts] this works for many, many people who are having trouble falling asleep or getting back to sleep. You can try this tonight. I do this often. It works for me. You keep your eyes closed or you close your eyes. You move your eyes relatively slowly to one side, then the other side. one side, then the other side. Then you move your eyes in a counterclockwise circle, and then a clockwise circle, then up, then down, and then you sort of do a kind of faux crosseyed attempt. You sort of look down towards the bridge of your nose, and you exhale, which is going to slow your heart rate down. Now, what is all this nonsense about eye movements? Did I just do this as a joke to to uh see if you would do it? The the truth is if you do this when you're trying to fall asleep, your vestibular system, which is essentially in working in concert with your eyes, uh, for reasons we could talk about, but your cerebellum and your vestibular system are essentially transitioning from where you need to be very aware of your body position and make adjustments all the time to one in which you're forgetting about body position. And we know, and there are great data showing that a very slow rocking of a bed will help put you to sleep. When you rock back and forth, your body doesn't have like a little metronome in it. It says, "I'm rocking." It's your eye movements that compensate in the opposite direction, which tell your cerebellum, "Hey, we're rocking." This is why if you're on a boat and this and the horizon's going like this, your cere you get seasick because you can't orient to kind of dead zero for, you know, pitch, yaw, and roll. And so, anyway, I don't want to get too technical here, but if you have trouble sleeping, try what I just described a few times. Many people find that it helps them fall asleep. because you stop thinking about your body position. >> And of course, bed coolness, room coolness, all can help. But what I just described can be very very helpful for a number of people whose minds are racing because if their mind is racing, you also need need to give people something to do with their mind. You can't just say like don't think about it or stop thinking or just go to sleep. That doesn't work. You can say just wake up, but you can't say just go to sleep. There's a weird asymmetry built into our autonomic nervous system that way. In other news, if you're feeling tired, you might not need more sleep. 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