Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2022

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, I provide a list of behavioral, nutritional, and supplement-based tools you can use to improve your ability to get into a focused state to do mental or physical work. I explain science-supported strategies for transitioning into focus, maintaining focus during the work bout, and exiting the focus session, which is also critical, including decompression/defocusing tools. I explain when and how to use: binaural beats, caffeine, deliberate cold exposure, the pros and cons of working in fasted vs. fed states, and supplements and foods that enhance dopamine, epinephrine (i.e., adrenaline) and acetylcholine to promote optimal focus. Also, I explain how short behavioral practices, such as meditation and visual gaze training, will benefit your ability to focus over the long term. As deep focus is crucial to significantly improve cognitive or physical performance in any realm, this episode should be useful to anyone. By the end, you’ll have an essential toolkit of science-supported, low- to zero-cost focus and concentration strategies to select from that can be tailored to your physical and mental performance needs. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Focus Toolkit (00:04:42) Sponsors: AG1, LMNT (00:09:37) The “Arrow Model” of Focus: Epinephrine, Acetylcholine & Dopamine (00:15:15) Modulation vs. Mediation, Importance of Sleep (00:18:11) Tool: Binaural Beats to Improve Concentration (00:20:54) Tool: White, Brown & Pink Noise, Transition to Focused State (00:22:55) Warm-Up for Cognitive Work, Refocusing Attention & Neuroplasticity (00:26:14) Tool: Ultradian Cycles: Warm-Up, Maintaining Focus & Deliberate Defocusing (00:31:22) How Many Daily Ultradian Cycles Can One Perform? (00:32:28) Sponsor: AG1 (00:35:35) Virtusan: Mental & Physical Health Journeys (00:36:52) Tool: Fasted vs. Fed States & Focus, Prevent an Afternoon Crash, Ketosis (00:45:52) Tool: Foods to Improve Focus & Regulating Food Volume (00:47:53) Tool: Caffeine & Focused Work, Dopamine Efficacy, Alertness (00:52:55) Tool: Stress & Improved Concentration (00:55:46) Tool: Deliberate Cold Exposure & Focus, Dopamine & Epinephrine (01:00:39) Layer Focusing Tools & Design Your Own Protocols (01:01:19) Tool: Short Meditation & Improved Ability to Refocus (01:07:40) Tool: Yoga Nidra, Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) & Defocus Periods (01:12:13) Tool: Hypnosis & Focus/Deep Relaxation States (01:16:07) Optimal Time of Day to Use Specific Tools (01:16:46) Tool: Overt Visual Focus & Deliberate Gaze (01:20:42) Covert Visual Focus; Deliberate Gaze Warm-Up & Focused Work (01:24:43) Tool: Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids (01:27:28) Tool: Creatine Monohydrate (01:29:10) Tool: Alpha-GPC & Acetylcholine, Increased Risk of Stroke? & Garlic (01:33:52) Tool: L-Tyrosine Supplements & Food (01:34:47) Combining & Choosing Focus Tools, Variability (01:36:50) ADHD Prescriptions, Training Neural Circuits, Maintenance & Reduced Dosage (01:39:19) Tool: Optimal Order Approaching Focus Tools, Prescriptions & Dependency (01:42:56) Tool: Phenylethylamine & Dopamine (01:44:50) Tool: Other Supplements to Enhance Dopamine, Epinephrine & Acetylcholine (01:46:46) Behavioral, Nutrition & Supplement Tools for Focus (01:49:12) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Momentous Supplements, AG1 (Athletic Greens), Instagram, Twitter, Neural Network Newsletter 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.
0:06.0	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:14.3	Today we are discussing focus and concentration and tools for improving your focus and
0:19.4	concentration. This is a topic that I've covered previously on the
0:22.8	Huberman Lab podcast but in different context. For instance we had a very
0:26.2	popular episode on ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which of
0:30.5	course relates to the topic of focus and how to improve focus.
0:33.3	We've also talked a lot about dopamine motivation and drive.
0:36.5	In fact, that's the title of your previous also quite popular episode of this podcast.
0:40.9	But never before have we had a single episode solely devoted to the
0:45.6	tools to improve focus and concentration. The rationale for recording this
0:49.2	episode is to provide people one location where they can go and quickly access the specific tools
0:54.4	for increasing focus and concentration that are known to be the most powerful tools and the most up-to-date tools.
1:00.8	In fact, today's episode is going to include description of several
1:04.4	peer-reviewed studies and the tools that emerge from those scientific peer-reviewed
1:07.8	studies that point to new and fortunately even briefer protocols than I've
1:12.3	described before.
1:13.4	So what I'm basically describing here is tools that in a very short amount of time
1:18.0	will allow you to significantly increase your focus and concentration abilities. Those tools will include behavioral tools, nutrition-based tools, supplement-based tools,
1:27.0	brain-machine interface-based tools, and for those of you that are working with physician prescription drug tools.
1:33.2	Today's episode ought to benefit anybody, young or old or anything in between,
1:37.4	whether or not you have ADHD or not.
	...

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