#1842 - Andrew Huberman

Joe Rogan (0:14)

What's up, man?

Andrew Huberman (0:15)

Great to see you.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Good to see you, too. So we were just talking about Ari blacking out, trying to keep up with Shane Gillis, who is a superhuman drinker. It's bizarre, the volume he could put down.

And you were saying, you were about to say something?

Andrew Huberman (0:29)

Yeah, I mean, obviously, there's a tolerance that's built up with drinking a lot. But I believe the number is approximately 8% of people have a mutation in a gene such that when they drink alcohol, it increases their dopamine levels very quickly. And they get euphoric. They feel great. These are the people like that character in Mad Men, the Don Draper character, like he would go out and just get plastered in the next day. You know, he's all fresh and ready.

And part of that is tolerance. But in certain Scandinavian countries, Northern European countries, this gene tends to be more prevalent. And these people are the people that can just keep drinking and drinking. They feel great when they drink, whereas most people, they feel disinhibited at the beginning. You know, you have a couple of drinks, the forebrain shuts down a little bit because that's what it does. They start talking more, talking more. But if they keep drinking, they're blacking out, you know, they're stumbling, they're slurring their words.

This 8% of people by way of this genetic mutation, alcohol affects them very differently. It offsets all that sedative property and they could just go and go and go, this is the person who's doing a case a day or at the party and just shot for shot and just looking like they're improving in function. Obviously they're not, but you put one of those people against Ari Shafir. Yeah.

And that's what you get.

Joe Rogan (1:45)

Yeah. So even for those people though, it still has a negative effect on your body, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:51)

Oh yeah. I mean, the toxicity of the alcohol is universal, but in terms of how it impacts brain function. And you see this across all these different categories of drugs too, right? You know, somebody takes a Ritalin, Adderall, Modafinil or Armodafinil. These are the common prescribed drugs now and people use them recreationally for ADHD. In fact, in researching an episode for our podcast on ADHD, it turns out that more than 0% of college students will rely on ADHD meds, quote, unquote, recreationally, not prescribed. They buy it from each other in order to study.

80%. And those drugs work mainly by increasing dopamine and increasing adrenaline, and they make your focus like this narrow and you're in a trench and you can't function.

But a number of people take them and feel super distracted and lousy. But this is, of course, what they prescribe to kids with ADHD.

Joe Rogan (2:45)

Now, when you modafinil, that's provigil? Is that what that is?

Andrew Huberman (2:49)

Yeah, now there's some, it's very expensive. It's like $1,000 a month in some cases.

Joe Rogan (2:55)

Really?

Andrew Huberman (2:56)

It was originally for narcolepsy, so to offset daytime sleepiness. That was the original use of the drug. And then it also does work for enhancing focus, right? I mean, that has drawbacks. It's not perhaps as detrimental as like recreational drugs to increase focus. But most of the students out there and the tech workers, and this is big in the finance world too, are relying on Ritalin Adderall and things like Vyvanse. And to be clear, they have legitimate clinical uses.

Joe Rogan (3:24)

What is Vyvanse?

Andrew Huberman (3:25)

It's another one of these drugs for ADHD. Here's the story around why these drugs initially came to be.

If you look at kids or adults with ADHD, like true attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity disorder, you don't always have the hyperactivity. What you find is they can focus really well if it's on something they like. So a kid with ADD or ADHD that loves video games, that kid will play video games with laser focus for three hours.

Joe Rogan (3:50)

That sounds like me.

Andrew Huberman (3:51)

But then you put them in front of something they don't want to do and they just can't anchor their discipline. They just don't have the discipline.

Joe Rogan (3:57)

That also sounds like me.

Andrew Huberman (3:59)

Although I doubt that. Maybe it'll come up later, but your discipline for fitness and ice baths and training come.

Joe Rogan (4:04)

Yeah, but I like those things.

Andrew Huberman (4:06)

Right. Well, and if you can arrange your life such that most of your stuff is around that, great. But these kids prove that if you like something, you can focus. And it comes as no surprise then that the drugs for ADHD universally increase dopamine because dopamine is this incredible molecule that enhances focus, motivation and drive and literally narrows the aperture of your visual attention.