Dr Andrew Huberman's Health Protocols: Modern Wisdom Podcast
Key insights: 60-second read
- High morning cortisol and low nighttime cortisol are the cheat code to health - this rhythm sets you up for better mood, focus, sleep, and stress resilience all day.
- Get sunlight in your eyes within 30 minutes of waking - this is the most powerful way to spike morning cortisol and anchor your circadian rhythm.
- Use the physiological sigh for instant stress relief - two big inhales followed by a long exhale slows your heart rate and calms your nervous system immediately.
- Focus requires alertness and making errors - you learn best when you're alert but calm, and you need to make genuine attempts that produce errors to trigger neuroplasticity.
- Get over difficult things in four steps - acknowledge the hard thing, feel the feelings completely, uncouple the emotion from the memory, then transmute it into something meaningful.
In a recent conversation on the Modern Wisdom podcast, neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman shared what he considers the most important protocols for mental and physical health, drawn from decades of research and his new book.
He's been doing the guest podcast circuit of late, and although he covers a few similar ideas from his time on the Diary of a CEO podcast, he still presents a few interesting quality-of-life-affecting tips.
Interestingly, if he had one broad tip for health, it's this: make the first hour of your day high cortisol and the last hour low cortisol.
So, let's summarise what he said and what it means in practice.
On this page
The Cortisol Rhythm: The Cheat Code to Health
Cortisol is often called the "stress hormone," but Dr Huberman suggests this could be misleading. He states that cortisol is an energy-mobilising hormone. You want it high in the morning and low at night.
High morning cortisol sets you up for elevated mood, focus, and alertness all day. It buffers stress better and ensures your nighttime cortisol is low. If you don't spike morning cortisol enough, you get a high, flat cortisol curve - which makes you less resilient to stress, more prone to brain fog, and less able to learn.
"Bookending your day with things that spike your cortisol at the beginning and lower your cortisol at the end is really the cheat code to life."
The Morning Routine: How to Spike Cortisol
To spike morning cortisol, Dr Huberman recommends doing these things in the first one to three hours of your day:
- Bright light in your eyes: Sunlight if possible, or 10,000 lux artificial light. Ideally within 30 minutes of waking.
- Hydration: Drink 16 to 32 ounces of water.
- Caffeine: If you use it, have it in the morning.
- Exercise: If you can, do it in the first three hours.
- Eating: Eating in the first three hours can also spike cortisol, though Huberman personally fasts.
At night, do the opposite: dim the lights, dim your screens, avoid caffeine, and avoid exercise in the final hour before sleep if possible.
Real-Time Stress Relief: The Physiological Sigh
When you're stressed and need to calm down fast, use the physiological sigh. Dr Huberman recommends taking two big inhales through your nose, then exhale all the way out through your mouth until your lungs are empty.
This slows your heart rate down through a mechanism called respiratory sinus arrhythmia. He suggests this is the fastest and most effective way to calm down in the moment. Doing 10 deliberate exhales throughout your day can also significantly increase your heart rate variability.
Clinically, as a Physio, I find prolonged exhales are invaluable for pain relief. It prompts our nervous system to down-regulate and feel safe.
"Do a long deliberate exhale when you're stressed. It slows your heart rate down immediately and tips your nervous system toward calm."
How to Focus and Learn
To learn, Dr Huberman explains that you need to be alert but calm, Ready, but not panicked.
He goes on to suggest that the key to learning is making errors through genuine attempts. If you can already do something, your brain has no reason to change. The error between what you can do and what you're trying to do is the signal that tells your brain to adapt. It's why you may need to push yourself to the point of agitation.
The Steps to Learning
- Be alert: Exercise, sleep, and morning light all help.
- Focus: Remove distractions, especially your phone.
- Make errors: Push yourself to the point of genuine attempts and failures.
- Rest: Sleep allows your brain to rewire and consolidate what you learned.
- Self-test: Retrieve the information from memory. If you can't remember it, look it up. This reinforces the learning.
Getting Over Difficult Things: The Four Steps
Dr Huberman outlines a four-step process for moving through difficult experiences, drawn from the trauma literature:
- Acknowledge the thing: You can't suppress it or deny it anymore. Acknowledge what happened.
- Feel the feelings completely: There's no way around this. You have to feel the full weight of what happened.
- Uncouple the emotion from the memory: Recall the details of what happened with less emotional load. The emotion starts to peel back.
- Transmute it: Turn the experience into something of beauty or contribution - help others who've been through similar things, or create something meaningful from it.
Dr Huberman suggests that something as simple as journaling for 15 minutes a day for four days about the difficult thing has been shown to help people move through these steps. The key is not to stay stuck in step two - feeling the feelings is necessary, but it's not the end point.
This is huge for me clinically. Past trauma plays such a huge hidden, underlying role in a person's chronic pain experience. Its ability to chronically heighten a person's nervous system over time can fundamentally shift their pain experience from one that is fleeting to a persistent one. Working on down-regulating the nervous system is one thing, but meaningfully progressing past any traumatic experience is clearly the gold standard.
The message from this conversation is clear: the fundamental principles of great mental and physical health are more clearly understood. High morning cortisol, low nighttime cortisol, real-time stress relief, focused learning, and a structured approach to getting over difficult things.
As Dr Huberman puts it, it's not about the tools. It's about what the tools open up for you.
- Grant
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is high morning cortisol a good thing?
High morning cortisol sets you up for elevated mood, focus, and alertness all day. It also ensures your nighttime cortisol is low, which is essential for good sleep. A high, flat cortisol curve is associated with less resilience to stress and more brain fog.
What is the physiological sigh and how do I do it?
It's a breathing pattern that calms your nervous system fast: two big inhales through your nose, then a long exhale through your mouth until your lungs are empty. It slows your heart rate immediately.
How do I get better at focusing?
You need to be alert but calm. Exercise, sleep, and morning light help with alertness. Remove distractions, especially your phone. Then push yourself to make genuine attempts at something difficult. The errors are what trigger your brain to change.
How do I get over a difficult experience?
There are four steps: acknowledge the thing, feel the feelings completely, uncouple the emotion from the memory, and then transmute it into something meaningful. Journaling for 15 minutes a day for four days can help you move through these steps.
One key insight from this conversation
"If I had two minutes with somebody and they said, what's the thing I can do for my health? I'd say: make the first hour of your day high cortisol and the last hour of your day low cortisol. It really is the cheat code to life."
Need personalised guidance for your health?
If you would like help with any musculoskeletal pain, injury, or general health concerns, you can book with Grant either in Port Macquarie or via an online telehealth consultation.
