LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Recently, the Huberman Lab podcast hosted a live event at the Great Hall in Brisbane, Australia. The event was called The Brain Body Contract and featured a lecture followed by a question and answer session with the audience. We wanted to make the question and answer session available to everyone regardless if you could attend. I also would like to thank the sponsors for the event. They are 8Sleep and AG1. 8Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the fact that sleep is the critical foundation for mental health, physical health, and performance. Now, one of the key things to getting the best possible night's sleep is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment. And that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually needs to drop by about one to three degrees. And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and alert, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. 8 Sleep mattress covers make it extremely easy to control the temperature of your sleeping environment and thereby to control your core body temperature so that you fall and stay deeply asleep and wake up feeling your absolute best. I've been sleeping on an 8 Sleep mattress cover for about three years now, and it has completely transformed the quality of my sleep for the better. 8 Sleep recently launched their newest generation of pod cover, the Pod 4 Ultra. The Pod 4 cover has improved cooling and heating capacity, higher fidelity sleep tracking technology, and the Pod 4 cover has snoring detection that will automatically lift your head a few degrees to improve airflow and stop your snoring. If you'd like to try an 8 Sleep mattress cover, you can go to 8sleep.com/huberman to save $350 off their Pod 4 Ultra. 8 Sleep currently ships to the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's 8sleep.com/huberman. The other live event sponsor, AG1, is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also contains adaptogens and other critical micronutrients. I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they decided to sponsor the live event. I started taking AG1 and I still take AG1 once or twice a day because it gives me vitamins and minerals that I might not be getting enough of from whole foods that I eat as well as adaptogens and micronutrients. Those adaptogens and micronutrients are really critical because even though I strive to eat most of my foods from unprocessed or minimally processed whole foods, it's often hard to do so, especially when I'm traveling and especially when I'm busy. So by drinking a packet of AG1 in the morning and oftentimes also again in the afternoon or evening, I'm ensuring that I'm getting everything I need. I'm covering all of my foundational nutritional needs. And I, like so many other people that take AG1 regularly, just report feeling better. And that shouldn't be surprising because it supports gut health. And of course, gut health supports immune system health and brain health. And it's supporting a ton of different cellular and organ processes that all interact with one another. So while certain supplements are really directed towards one specific outcome, like sleeping better or being more alert, AG1 really is foundational nutritional support. It's really designed to support all of the systems of your brain and body that relate to mental health and physical health. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs with your order, plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman.
And now for the live event at the Great Hall in Brisbane, Australia.
What are my thoughts on nicotine? Nicotine causes cancer when it's consumed in the form of smoking, vaping, dipping, or snuffing. So don't do that. There's a debate now about vaping. Is it bad? Is it good? It's bad.
It is. Is it worse for you than smoking? Probably not. Is it better? Probably, slightly. You know what's better? Just not doing it. But if you need to do it, and you have to pick, I suppose, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I think that vaping has allowed a good number of people to smoke less. I'll acknowledge that. And it's also clear it's not good for you. So if you're going to do something that's bad for you, do a bunch of things to offset the thing that's bad for you. That's always my advice. But now in terms of nicotine itself, nicotine doesn't cause cancer. The mode of consumption causes cancer. That's important. Nicotine binds to so-called nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. So these exist naturally in your body and on your muscles. They're the way that actually your nerves control contraction of your muscles. So the consumption of nicotine, let's just say in, I don't know about down here, but in Europe, it's becoming fairly common. In the Middle East, also for people that take little pouches of nicotine, can be absorbed sublingually or through the gum, gets into the bloodstream. It is truly a cognitive enhancer. It's a cognitive enhancer. I'm not going to lie to you. It will raise attention, focus, cognitive performance. This is well established. The problem is it also raises blood pressure and causes vasoconstriction. This is well established. So, you know, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Do I do it sometimes? Do I do it often? Do I choose to not do it at all? I don't think the young brain should be consuming nicotine, even in these non-cancer-causing forms like pouches, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because the brain is so plastic at a young age anyway. But actually, I'm familiar with the use of nicotine for offsetting certain neurologic diseases. When I was visiting Columbia Medical University in New York City, some years ago, I was in the office of a Nobel Prize winner, won't tell you who it was necessarily, and he proceeded to consume no fewer than six pieces of Nicorette gum in our half-hour meeting.