Time Perception & Entrainment by Dopamine, Serotonin & Hormones

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I discuss how our brain and body track time and the role that neurochemicals, in particular dopamine and serotonin, but also hormones such as melatonin, allow us to orient ourselves in time. I review the three types of time perception: of the past, of the present, and the future, and how dopamine and serotonin adjust both our perception of the speed of the passage of time and our memory of how long previous experiences lasted. I also discuss circannual entrainment, which is the process by which our brain and body are matched to the seasons, and circadian (24 hours) entrainment, both of which subconsciously adjust our perceived measurement of time. I explain the mechanisms of that subconscious control. And I cover the ultradian (90 minutes) rhythms that govern our ability to focus, including how to track when these 90-minute rhythms begin and end for the sake of work and productivity. I include ten tools based on the science of time perception that you can apply to enhance productivity, creativity, and relationships in various contexts. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Thesis: https://takethesis.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Introducing Time Perception, Note on Fasting & Supplements (00:05:12) Sponsors (00:09:25) Entrainment, Circannual Entrainment, Melatonin (00:13:20) Seasonal Oscillations in Testosterone & Estrogen, Tool 1 (00:16:06) Circadian Timing, Tools 1, 2, 3 (for Circadian Entrainment) (00:21:13) Tool 4: Timing Physical Activity; Tool 5: Timing Eating Window (00:23:00) When Circadian Entrainment is Disrupted, Time Perception Suffers (00:25:00) Tool 6: Ultradian (90min) Cycles & Focus (00:31:42) Our Sense of the Passage of Time: Present, Prospective, Retrospective (00:34:40) Dopamine (& Nor/epinephrine) Lead to Time Overestimation; Frame Rate (00:37:18) Serotonin & Time Underestimation; Decreased Frame Rate (00:39:10) Dopamine vs. Serotonin Across the Day; Tool 7: When to Do Rigid vs. Creative Work (00:42:38) Example of Tool 7 (00:43:38) How Sleep Deprivation Degrades Performance (00:44:38) Trauma, “Over-clocking” & Memories; Adjusting Rates of Experience (00:50:04) Why Trauma Involves Dopamine & Epinephrine, Arousal (00:51:03) Dopamine, Spontaneous Blinking & Time Perception; Tool 8 (00:53:38) Deliberate Cold Exposure, Dopamine, Tool 9: Adjusting Frame Rate in Discomfort (00:56:30) Fun “Feels Fast” BUT Is Remembered as Slow; Boring Stuff “Feels Slow,” Recall As Fast (01:00:54) Retrospective Time, Context Variation & Enhanced Bonding with Places & People (01:03:00) Dopamine Release Resets the Start of Each Time Bin on Our Experience (01:07:40) Habits & Time Perception; Tool 10 (Setting Functional Units of Each Day) (01:11:58) Synthesis & Book Suggestion (Your Brain Is a Time Machine by D. Buonomano) (01:12:27) Supporting the HLP: Subscribe, Instagram, Supplements Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.8	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.3	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are talking about time perception.
0:17.6	Our perception of time is perhaps the most important factor in
0:22.0	How we gauge our life. That is whether or not we think we are being successful, whether or not we are failing,
0:28.1	whether or not we live in fear, whether or not we live in relation to things in a way that's positive.
0:33.8	The reason for that is that our perception of time is directly linked to the neurochemical states that control mood,
0:41.3	stress, happiness, excitement, and of course it frames the way in which we evaluate our past.
0:48.8	Whether or not we think of our past as successful or unsuccessful,
0:52.4	it frames our present, whether or not we think we are on track or off track and it frames our sense of the future.
0:59.8	Whether or not we think we have a bright future, a dim future, or whether or not the future is very uncertain or not.
1:07.1	Today we are going to talk about the science of time perception and we are going to talk about tools and protocols that you can use
1:14.7	that can enhance your ability to dilate and contract time. What do we mean by dilate and contract time?
1:20.6	We can control the speed at which we experience life. We can slow things down or we can speed our experience of life up.
1:29.8	And we can do that in a very direct and dynamic way. It's actually not that hard once you understand how time perception works.
1:36.5	So that's where we're headed. I think you're going to come away from today's episode with a lot of new knowledge
1:41.8	and certainly with many tools that you can try in your daily life whether or not that's work, sport, relational, emotional, and so on.
1:48.8	Before we begin our discussion about time perception, I'd like to answer some questions that I received related to the episode on fasting and time restricted feeding.
1:57.9	If you haven't seen that episode, this information should still be of use to you.
2:01.9	Time restricted feeding involves eating for a particular period of time in each 24 hour cycle. That's fairly regular.
2:09.0	So this would be an eight hour most often or a 10 hour block. Some people do shorter, shorter feeding windows.
2:15.2	But regardless, that feeding window is supposed to fall at more or less the same period within each 24 hour day.
	...

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