Things I learnt from Dr Huberman's podcast. Recording here because I think as I write, and more impulses and reflections might come up than if the thoughts were bouncing around my skull on their own. I don't have the luck that some people have, who have characters in their brains with whom they converse, so I have to literally to (or at, which I am guilty of sometimes) other people.
Episodes 1 and 2
- Perception vs Sensation: we can't control sensation - our nerve cells are always sensing, but we can control perception by bringing awareness to the body part, i.e. literally bringing attention to it.
- Playing a tone when learning something, and then playing it softly while you sleep will help accelerate the learning
- Our lives exist in 90-min cycles, and that's also the ideal learning cycle
- Getting daylight directly into our eyes (and not through a window or sunglasses) soon after we wake up helps our body release a cortisol pulse at the right time which wakes up all the cells in our body.
- Getting late afternoon or evening sunlight directly in our eyes also helps reset the body clock
- Melatonin content and what is listed on the supplement packaging can differ wildly, ranging from 15% of stated amount, to more than 400x the stated amount. Also, it prevents the onset of puberty in young people, i.e. the pineal gland in children secretes more melatonin than adults, which might be why children need more sleep, and can fall asleep a lot more easily?
There were lots more salient points but these stuck with me a bit more, especially the point about using sunlight to reset your body clock. I noticed soon after I moved to the East (of Singapore) that it was much easier for my body to wake up and my brain to feel awake because I got natural sunlight, and with a swish of my curtain, I could directly see the morning sky. This dramatically changed my morning experience, as I did not have any daylight in my old room in my parents' house.