Notes from Andrew Huberman - Rich Roll Podcast
Neuroplasticity (is the ability of the brain to change through the response of the nervous system with regards to experience. A child’s brain is extremely malleable - hence high loads of neuroplasticity are released during its development. Examples of neuroplasticity include circuit and network changes that result from learning a new ability, environmental influences, practice and psychological stress.
plasticity is defined as how malleable and adaptable something is)
Activity-dependent plasticity is the biological basis for learning and formation of new memories.
Brain can change in adulthood. Provided that there’s special focus on a particular perception (sth that is happening during the learning process), a neuroquemical system called Acetylcholine is released specially to those neurons that are involved in that behavior, and it marks those for change during sleep or periods of deep rest later.
Basically, what the brain wants is to pass as much behavior as possible to reflexive behavior (automatic response). It wants to pick up things and behaviors without putting much effort into it. [Brain is lazy]. When there’s intense focus, the brain switches on certain systems and tries to understand:
One of the reasons 2020 is so exhausting is because the brain is more often than ever in that analysis state: duration, path and outcome.
Duration / Path / Outcome (DPO) analysis is embedded into our brain, but it takes work to trigger it. That is because the circuits that are involved before the release of acetylcholine (neurotransmitter released during DPO stages) are of the stress system. “When we decide to do something and dig in, Norepinephrine (noradrenaline - hormone and neurotransmitter) brings up the sense of alertness (mobilize the brain and body for action), before our attention is brought to a specific DPO analysis - e.g. hard read passage, hard set of math problems, challenging workout, etc.” An example is when someone needs to face their fears, they tend to get paralyzed or retreat due to the amount of norepinephrine in their brain stem which stagnates cognitive function.
Adult brain does not want to change the rooted algorithms that it learned during childhood. But, if you really want to learn something, bring up the most amount of focus possible to a specific thing, and then bring up the least amount of focus possible to that thing. It is studied and proven that plasticity in the adult brain can be as robust as it is in the child brain.
How to increase plasticity? Focus and sense of urgency. If there is a serious contignecy, e.g. go and get the food for that day, the amount of plasticity released is enormous. The reason is that the brain’s procedure to acquire new behaviors is linked to situations when there is a real need. Sense of urgency is acetylcholine (DPO) + norepinephrine (agitation).
Neurologycally, we still do not understand flow.
Dopamine system is very important to understand. It is Mother’s Nature natural system to put us in the right path. Dopamine is the reward feeling you get when you accomplish something e.g. publish a book. But, dopamine is also released when you perceiving that you are getting into the right path such as reaching milestones, tiny achievable steps throughout the process.
When the brain is in DPO states (i.e. highly intensive states of focus), norepinephrine (noradrenaline) starts to release, which is symptom for many to quit. When the dopamine system is in place and dopamine is released, it combats such norepinephrine by keeping its levels down.
When you start getting a convergence towards agitation (norepinephrine), DPO (acetylcholine), and dopamine, this is when you start to wire the behavior that makes people being very good at certain things.
Reward system is internal - brings in the discussion about mindset. Individuals who believe their talents can be delevoped (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). Important note is that Growth mindset != positive self-talk.
Situations like e.g. when kids were really enjoying after not being able to finish the puzzles, turns out they were enjoying due to the fact of just trying. Those kids turn out to be very good at math and puzzles. This is an intrinsic difference between internal and external reward systems.
Dopamine system is designed to be generic, so it can be adapted to whatever it is we need to do.
The misunderstanding of how the previously explained neurocircuits work (agitation, DPO, and dopamine) has led to the idea that there is a secret entry to “flow” and there is a trampoline that will get people right in front of that door. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can’t skip the line.
Self-rewarding the process is extremely powerful. For example, if you need to eventually run a marathon, but set a milestone to have achieved e.g. 10 km, and take that as an achievement and help the dopamine system kick in, you will see that it will give you more energy to run further.
Why people quit? e.g. . When norepinephrine is released through agitation in the middle of a high focus intense process, there is a counter in the brain stem that serves as a threshold to the point when norepinephrine surpasses that, the cognitive system shuts down, hence leading to quit. What helps putting that counter down is dopamine.
Long bouts of work
The ability to push through painpoints is what is going to wire us to help through hard states of life.