Priscilla Xu

1. Meditation and Focus?
2. The Arrow Model of Focus
3. Modulation vs. Mediation, Importance of Sleep
4. Tool: Binaural Beats to Improve Concentration
5. Warm Up Before Your Cognitive Work
6. Tool: Ultradian Cycles: Warm-Up, Maintaining Focus & Deliberate Defocusing
7. How Many Ultradian Cycles Can You Do In a Day?
8. Tool: Fasted vs. Fed States & Focus, Prevent an Afternoon Crash, Ketosis
9. Tool: Caffeine & Focused Work, Dopamine Efficacy, Alertness
10. Tool: Stress & Improved Concentration
11. Tool: Deliberate Cold Exposure & Focus, Dopamine & Epinephrine
12. Tool: Short Meditation & Improved Ability to Refocus
13. Tool: Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) & Defocus Periods
14. Tool: Hypnosis & Focus/Deep Relaxation States
15. Covert Visual Focus; Deliberate Gaze Warm-Up & Focused Work
16. Tool: Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids,
17. Tool: Creatine Monohydrate
18. Tool: Alpha-GPC & Acetylcholine, Increased Risk of Stroke? & Garlic
19. Tool: L-Tyrosine Supplements & Food
20. ADHD Prescriptions, Training Neural Circuits, Maintenance & Reduced Dosage
21. Combining & Choosing Focus Tools, Variability

Meditation and Focus?

• Professor Wendy Suzuki from NYU published a study about test subjects’ attention span increasing after 13 minutes of meditation for 8 weeks.
  
  • Meditation is zero cost and can significantly improve your attention span.
  • Contrary to popular belief, doing focused meditation four hours before sleep is not a good idea because it can disturb your ability to stay or fall asleep.

The Arrow Model of Focus

• Arrowhead is the acetylcholine
  
  • Acetylcholine acts as the spotlight in attention control.
• The shaft of the arrow is epinephrine and adrenaline for your alertness.
• The engine of the arrow is dopamine. Dopamine provides sustained focus.
  
  • This is why short feedback loops enable you to enter flow faster.

Modulation vs. Mediation, Importance of Sleep

• Mediation is how specific chemicals and circuits control specific things in the body.
• Modulation is how specific chemicals and circuits control the board in your body.
  
  • Sleep modulates all functions of the body. And you cannot recover from long-term sleep deprivation.
  • The Episode on Master Your Sleep is excellent for improving sleep quality.

Tool: Binaural Beats to Improve Concentration

• 40 Hz binaural beats have increased concentration in peer-reviewed science.
• Binaural beats are the different frequencies placed on the two sides of the year.
• The different frequencies played in your ears will be integrated into the deep brain center by increasing the neurotransmitter ACh and dopamine.
• Dr.Huberman doesn’t recommend using 40Hz binaural beats every time. He uses 5 minutes before work.
  
  • You can also use the 40 HZ beats if you have difficulty focusing.
• The brain wave app is what Dr.Huberman uses for binaural beats (iOS and Android links)

Warm Up Before Your Cognitive Work

• A person cannot drop into a deep focus session immediately.
• You need a warm-up session. Mental work is the same as exercising.
• Warm-up is the ramping up of epinephrine, dopamine, and acetylcholine
• The good news is you can train your ability to focus.

Tool: Ultradian Cycles: Warm-Up, Maintaining Focus & Deliberate Defocusing

• Our body operates on the ultradian cycle within the daily circadian cycle.
• One Ultradian cycle is around 90 minutes.
  
  • The first 5-10 minutes of the 90 minutes will be used for transitioning and warm-up.
  • You drop into focused work after 10 minutes.
  • People who are good at focusing will return their arrowhead to the center of focus.
• Defocusing is also equally crucial as focusing.
  
  • The period of idling is essential for you to refocus. It is like how you need to take a break between each muscle training set.
  • Looking at your phone does not count as defocusing.
• Do something that is functional for your day and does not require much attention.
  
  • You can set a timer for yourself during your break.

How Many Ultradian Cycles Can You Do In a Day?

• People who are good at focusing can do a maximum of three sessions daily.
  
  • Ultradian cycle is considered complex, deep, mental work, and you require yourself to focus on doing the hard work.

Tool: Fasted vs. Fed States & Focus, Prevent an Afternoon Crash, Ketosis

• Your ability to focus and the precision of your brain representing the world are related to how much glucose you have in your body.
• When we are fasting, we cannot perceive and think clearly.
• Some people like fasting because they like to feel more concentrated. This is because your parasympathetic (rest and digest) diverts blood to your gut for digesting food.
• Imagine a U shape function; if you have a highly fasted, you will be more concentrated. If you have some food, your parasympathetic system will be activated. Lastly, you will be more focused if well-fed with sufficient glucose.
• The rule of thumb is that do not eat too cool that you will be asleep and cannot focus.

Tool: Caffeine & Focused Work, Dopamine Efficacy, Alertness

• You can delay your coffee intake 90-120 minutes after waking up.
• Coffee can improve mental focus, but this depends on how caffeine-adapted you are (100-150mg)

Tool: Stress & Improved Concentration

• Stress increases your ability to focus because your body produces more epinephrine and acetylcholine (Source).
• The body wonders what will happen next and will focus on any danger that might pop in.

Tool: Deliberate Cold Exposure & Focus, Dopamine & Epinephrine

• Deliberate cold exposure can increase your dopamine and epinephrine.
  
  • The water temperature should be uncomfortable but safe to stay in for 1-5 minutes.
• Putting people in cold water can increase your learning because your stress level increases, making a more profound mark on your nervous system.
• The concentration effect can last around one hour after the deliberate cold exposure.
• You can take a cold shower for 3 minutes if you cannot focus well.
• You can use the different tools to layer in your focus.

Tool: Short Meditation & Improved Ability to Refocus

• When you meditate, you bring your awareness an inch behind your forehead and concentrate on your breathing simultaneously.
• Unless you are very experienced with meditating, your concentration will drift away from your breathing and an inch behind your forehand every 5-10 seconds.
• The critical thing with refocused and focused meditation is returning focus on your breath and behind your forehead.
  
  • You are training your networks that are involved in your mental focus and concentration.
• Focusing and refocusing is the trigger to teach your nervous system to focus.
• There are improvements in sleep, emotion regulation, and memory with meditation.
  
  • It can disrupt your sleep if you do focused meditation before sleep.

Tool: Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) & Defocus Periods

• NSDR is an audio script that takes you to deep body relaxation with a body scan.
  
  • We are modulating our body to relax and defocus. You will concentrate better after defocusing.
• There is restoration with dopamine level after one session. – Dr.Huberman does NSDR every day for 10-30 minutes. If he is very sleep-deprived, he will do 30-90 minutes. However, NSDR should never replace actual sleep.

Tool: Hypnosis & Focus/Deep Relaxation States

• Hypnosis is a state where your brain is relaxed and very concentrated. (Studied by Dr.David Spiegel)
• Dr.Huberman recommends an app called Reveri for hypnosis.
  
  • The app has a free script to help you enter the hypnosis state.
  • This can be done any time of day.
• Focused meditation —> NSDR —> Hypnosis

Covert Visual Focus; Deliberate Gaze Warm-Up & Focused Work

• Covert focus is where your gaze is focused on a location, but your mind is focused on your peripheral vision. From an evolutionary point of view, primates can obtain information about other primates without staring at the primate.
• If you wear a cap, your visual field will narrow. This will also help you increase your focus.
• Train your eyes to focus at a distant focus starting from 30 seconds and slowly increase the time by seconds.
• You bring your focus back when your gaze drifts off. This is the same concept as focus meditation.
• When working in your 90 minutes ultradian cycles, don’t check your phone when you feel bored. Anchor your attention somewhere in the room and try to focus again.

Tool: Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids,

• 1-3g of EPA can help you improve mood and cognitive functions by modulating the circuits and brain functions. It does not tap directly into the citrus of focus and concentration.

Tool: Creatine Monohydrate

• Creatine works as a fuel for neurons and brain circuits. It also affects muscle growth and physical performance.
• Dr.Huberman takes 5 grams of creatine monohydrate a day. This is for tapping into the creatine phosphate system and can help modulate the circuits of focusing.

Tool: Alpha-GPC & Acetylcholine, Increased Risk of Stroke? & Garlic

• Alpha GPC can assist with synthesizing more ACh for focus. 300 mg 10 minutes before concentration work is a suggestion.

Tool: L-Tyrosine Supplements & Food

• L-Tyrosine is the precursor of dopamine.
• Dr.Huberman takes 500 mg of L-Tyrosine in capsule form early in the day because it can disrupt his sleep.

ADHD Prescriptions, Training Neural Circuits, Maintenance & Reduced Dosage

• Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, Modafinil, and Armodafinil are all stimulants for ADHD prescription medicines. They all increase dopamine.
• If someone is diagnosed with ADHD, that medication can help.
  
  • The medicine can also teach ADHD folks how to focus.
  • The drug dosage can be decreased in the context of ADHD.
• 80% of college students use those prescription drugs when they are not supposed to. They increase concentration, but the dosage is too high and can lead to dependency.
  
  • Dopamine levels from L-Tyrosine and Alpha-GPC are substantially less than prescription drugs

Combining & Choosing Focus Tools, Variability

• Dr.Huberman likes to use behavior tools instead of all the tools.
• Don’t combine more than 2-3 tools.
• You can improve your likelihood of going into the state for that work.
• See those tools teaching you to concentrate, but you don’t always need them.
• Behavioral and nutritional tools come first. And then focus on supplements. If one is diagnosed clinically, then use prescription drugs.