The Optimal Morning Routine - Andrew Huberman

hello and welcome to a special episode of  after skool i'm andrew huberman professor of  

neurobiology and ophthalmology at stanford school  of medicine i'm also the host of the hubermann  

lab podcast a weekly podcast focused on science  and science-based tools for everyday life today  

you're going to learn about practical tools for  optimizing your morning routine so without further  

ado practical tools for optimizing your morning  routine there are certain foundational behaviors  

do's and don'ts that set the stage for you to  be better at everything so a lot of times people  

say how can i lift more focus better remember  things better it's like well let's think about  

the foundation of that and that's always  going to come back to two elements and  

that's sleep and what i call non-sleep  deep rest so sleep is the fundamental  

practice or part of our 24-hour cycle where  if you don't get it on a consistent basis you  

are down regulating your ability to do everything  right metabolism is screwed up immune system is  

screwed up etc etc however it is not the case  if you get a one night's bad sleep or that if  

you're not sleeping perfectly that you can't  perform well but let's talk about sleep and just  

because i think it's important the goal for most  people unless you're pulling vampire shifts on  

on deployment or you're a shift worker and thank  you shift workers we'll talk about shift work  

you should try and get really good sleep eighty  percent of the time eight percent of the nights  

of your life the other twenty percent i hope  you're not getting good sleep for good reasons  

that you enjoy but the point is that there are  a couple things that you can do first of all  

every cell in your body has a circadian rhythm  meaning every cell has a 24-hour circadian clock  

that's regulated by genes think of these your body  is a bunch of millions of clock to need to align  

those clocks to a single time this is why when  you travel overseas your gut goes off or it's  

more easy you more easily you get sick or uh your  thinking isn't quite right the clocks aren't in  

alignment they're not entrained as we say number  one practice for everything sleep especially is  

try and get some natural light in your eyes within  an hour of waking up if you wake up before the sun  

turn on a bunch of bright lights and then  get sunlight in your eyes once it comes out  

if there's dense cloud cover there  are still more photons light energy  

coming through that cloud cover than there are  coming from artificial lights so try and get  

five to ten minutes without sunglasses  outside in the morning once the sun is out  

most days if not all days this has an outsized  effect on a number of things first of all it  

modulates the timing of what's called the cortisol  pulse once every 24 hours you're going to get a  

boost in cortisol big spike in cortisol it's a  healthy boost it sets your temperature rhythm  

in motion sets your level of alertness your  level of focus and your mood you want that  

cortisol pulse to happen as early in the day  as once what's triggering the cortisol pulse  

the cortisol pulse is naturally entrained by these  genetic programs to happen once every 24 hours but  

light will anchor it to the period where you see  bright light got it a late-shifted cortisol pulse  

so imagine the kid that wakes up and spends the  morning in bed or you spend the morning bedding  

you're texting or you're indoors and you're  typing on the computer that's not enough light to  

accomplish what i'm talking about and then you go  outside around noon or one you're in what's called