In this YouTube video, the content creator decides to try neuroscientist Andrew Huberman’s science-backed morning routine for 30 days to improve his energy, focus, and productivity. The routine includes waking up early, getting sunlight, delaying caffeine intake, 90 minutes of focused work, physical exercise, and deliberate cold exposure. Throughout the challenge, the creator faces difficulty in staying focused while working, but he makes adjustments such as reducing phone usage and changing workspaces. By the end of the 30 days, the creator experiences improvements in energy levels, mood, work performance, and even physical health. The routine proves successful, and he plans to continue it going forward. The video also includes a sponsorship message for HelloFresh, a meal kit delivery service.
Key Insights:
- Andrew Huberman is a renowned neuroscientist known for his research at Stanford University and his podcast on habits and routines for a successful life.
- Following Huberman’s morning routine, which includes exposure to sunlight, delaying caffeine intake, work sessions, physical exercise, and deliberate cold exposure, can lead to positive changes in energy levels, mood, and work productivity.
- Implementing Huberman’s routine requires tracking progress through blood tests, energy and mood levels, and work productivity evaluations.
- While improvements may not be immediate, consistent practice can lead to long-term benefits and increased resilience against distractions.
- Switching workspaces and minimizing phone usage during work sessions can enhance focus and productivity.
- Results from the challenge show improvements in energy levels, mood, health markers, and work productivity.
- Continuing the routine and engaging in challenging activities can lead to long-term personal growth.
- HelloFresh, a meal kit delivery company, offers hassle-free and healthy recipe options for those looking to save time and improve their eating habits.
- Using the code „togoguys50“ on hellofresh.com provides a discount and free shipping on the first box.
Transcript:
Thank you to HelloFresh for sponsoring this video. Then, Drew Huberman, the internet’s favorite neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman. Andrew Huberman through his research at Stanford University and his excellent podcast, he has become the go-to expert on the best habits and routines for living a successful and fulfilling life. And this is me. While I don’t think I have the worst habits in the world, lately I’ve been in a slump. Less energy throughout the day, slacking off in healthy habits, and an inability to focus on my work, leading to a constant feeling like I’m going through the motions at half speed. So for the next 30 days, I want to try Andrew Huberman’s science-backed morning routine to see if he can pull me out of the rut that I’m in. But what is Andrew Huberman’s morning routine?
For me, I tend to wake up sometime around 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m., and I write down the time in which I woke up. The second thing I do after I wake up is I make a beeline for sunlight. So, getting outside for a 10-minute walk or a 15-minute walk is absolutely vital to mental and physical health. When I get back, I start craving caffeine, but I purposely delay my caffeine intake to 90 minutes to 120 minutes after I wake up, so for me, I just drink water. I also put a little bit of sea salt in the water, and I also drink my Athletic Greens, which is compatible with fasting, so I don’t eat anything until about 11 a.m. or 12 noon.
Next, I would do a 90-minute bout of work, and that’s typically phone off and out of the room. You’d be amazed how much you can get done in 90 minutes if you are focused. After I finish that cognitive workout, I do some form of physical exercise for about an hour. Very last, but certainly not least, deliberate cold exposure, and that’s what I do each morning. And I’m certain that these tools work.
On day one, I wake up craving coffee. However, instead, I get ready and I head out for my morning walk. And while it’s definitely no morning coffee, it actually is really, really nice, and I feel pretty good afterwards. What doesn’t feel so good, though, is drinking salt water. But I don’t want to rely on how I’m feeling to evaluate my progress on this goal, as feelings can change pretty quickly. I don’t want to do this.
To track my progress with this challenge, I’m gonna be conducting three tests. The first is I just took a blood test for day one. That’s gonna measure things like my testosterone levels, and judging by how scared I was to prick my finger, oh, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I’m worried they might be a little low. Oh, test number two is by tracking my energy and my mood levels at the end of each day. I’ve already been doing this for the past month, so at the end of this, I’m going to compare my numbers and see if I’ve made any improvements. And finally, I’ll be testing my work productivity. To help me evaluate that, I’ve asked for help from the one person who knows my work habits better than anyone else.
My name is Brendan. I am Cam’s brother and his boss. That’s… I’m evaluating how you do at your job. That makes me your boss.
Sure. You procrastinate, get distracted, procrastinate more, just a serial scroller, bad communication, bad time management, missed deadlines.
Yeah, I think that sums it up. And sadly, he’s not wrong. I am terrible at focusing. And in my first week in this challenge, that seemingly has not changed. Even with a science-backed checklist to help, my brain is still struggling to get into the zone and work effectively. And even though it’s still early into this goal, I really need to figure this out.
For a bit more context, I work from home most days. And if you come through here, you just gotta come through the bathroom, past the toilet, and voila, this is where I work: staring at a screen in a storage room closet that is connected to my bathroom. Now, I have done the best to make this space feel cozy. However, it is still kind of a shitty place to work, no pun intended. And with that, I’ve become really good at getting out of this room and distracting myself at any chance I can get. Even with my phone out of the room, I am getting up constantly to top up on coffee or look for snacks that I can’t even eat because I’m fasting. And with each of these interruptions, I’m killing my momentum when I try to dig into a task, and I’m falling further and further behind in my work. And this is definitely the area I need to improve the most. Or at least that’s what I thought.
Testosterone, that’s your ideal range. 2.49, 2.4. I’m below average. I am speechless. I am speechless.
So one week in and I am failing in two categories. Great. With the discouraging week one complete, I really want to hone in on improving my work sessions for week two. So I decided to revisit some Huberman Lab episodes to see if there’s any tweaks I can make to improve my focus.
A couple of things for optimizing workspace that are grounded in neuroscience and physiology. So what I do is I prop the computer up such that it’s at least at eye level. When our eyes are directed upward, it creates a state of heightened alertness. In addition, I use low-level white noise, turned on at a low volume, not with headphones most of the time. Puts the brain into a state that’s optimal for learning and workflow.
The one single perk of working in a bathroom, white noise is easy to come by. I’m hoping that if I compare as much of Huberman’s advice on focus with the rest of my morning routine, that it can put me in the best possible position to lock in on my work and really start to see some progress.
This feels crazy to say this early into a challenge, but I feel like I’m already noticing benefits from this, strictly from like an energy and mood standpoint. I used to wake up every morning and just, like, do them scroll Twitter. And now, I, like, I genuinely look forward to these walks, get some natural light in my eyes, get some fresh air, some steps. I’m, like, halfway through an audiobook that I started this week. Things are going well.
Even with my cold showers, while they’re definitely not fun during, I do feel energized afterwards, and it feels like it fuels the rest of my day. This next blood test is about to be so much better.
But as much as I’ve seen improvement in my energy and in my health, my work sessions still seem to come up short. If I’m being honest, there hasn’t been as much improvement as I was hoping. It’s hard to point to anything and say, „You’ve accomplished more than you normally do.“
Determined to improve my performance, I opted to switch where I was going to be working and hopefully get myself into a better zone for focused work.
Three days working out of my house, my work still hasn’t improved, and it’s starting to look more and more like the problem isn’t where I’m working; the problem is me.
Yet another day where I am not as productive as I should. It just feels like the story of my life at this point. Ever since I started working for myself, ever since it’s just me and my computer in my house, like, it is like pulling teeth. It just feels like my brain cannot do this, and I don’t know what that is, but it feels like I’ve been fighting against the same thing. Number one problem in my life is being able to work for myself, be disciplined, be focused in my own work. And I like, it’s been eight years of fighting this same thing. Like, how does it make any sense? It starts to just feel like, this is who I am. Like, maybe I’m just not the person that I thought I was. Maybe this is just who I am. And that’s that is scary. And I just feel like I’m leaving so much potential on the table for myself, for my future. And that thought is horrifying.
Feeling defeated, my only hope now is to try and work backwards through the past two weeks to hopefully try and figure out what has been holding me back. Why is it that everything feels like it’s working except for this one thing?
It starts to just feel like, this is who I am. Like, maybe I’m just not the person that I thought I was. Maybe this is just who I am. And that’s that is scary. And I just feel like I’m leaving so much potential on the table for myself, for my future. Like, that thought is like horrifying.
Even though I’ve been working with my phone off and out of the office, I am still constantly using it throughout this routine, on my walks before I get ready to work, and after my 90 minutes are up, I immediately go to my phone. And if I’m constantly distracting myself before I sit down, it feels like I just keep craving that distraction when I’m working.
The next morning, I decided to try keeping my phone powered down until it was time for my lunch break to see if it would help me focus.
The moment you sit down to do some serious work and you flip off the internet, all of a sudden, it’s as if the phone has a voice. But we all are familiar with the fact that if we are focused on something, all that just kind of melts away. So I’m creating this space. I’m funneling my brain into a state where I set up a relationship not just between me and the work that I’m doing, but between me and my ability to control my own state of mind.
The more I avoided using my phone, the more focused I felt, allowing me to move throughout my mornings faster and more productively. And on the days where I really wanted to use my phone the most, I straight up stashed that in my car because I need to focus. And I have to say that while it can be a challenge to try and achieve this state and this tunnel of work, some days, you start to get kind of addicted to it. It feels really good. It’s like a workout for the mind. I don’t remember the last time I had an experience where I feel like I was in a flow state. Twice today, twice. Oh, and it feels good. I cannot say it enough. That felt so good today.
As strange as this may sound, I feel like the habit of jumping in the cold showers and drinking those awful saltwater drinks has actually made me more resilient when it comes to distraction. Because just practicing that daily habit of doing something hard that I know will be satisfying once it’s over, literally the exact same thing with getting in focused work. It’s hard. It’s challenging, but I feel so much better than I have in some time.
We got a 10 in energy and a 10 in mood. That is the first perfect day of this challenge. Today was a good day, a really, really good day. And when I tally up my numbers from the last 30 days, there’s been improvement in both my energy levels and my mood, with my reported energy levels increasing almost two whole points. Not just that, you’ve turned in everything on time this week, which I appreciate. It’s that it’s really good work.
Which leaves just one final test. Here we go, day one, day 30. Let’s go. I’m average vitamin D, got better. My cholesterol got better. Everything is better.
Things have been going so well I even started putting my friends onto the routine.
And how did you hear about it?
You told me about it.
Things have been going so well that I am honestly going to continue doing this. And I’m so thankful that I gave this a try. And to celebrate on the final day, I invited my brother and my friend Matt out to go for a cold plunge to finish this off by doing something challenging that I know will feel good afterwards. And my hope is that going forward after this challenge, that I can do that more often, that I can force myself to do difficult things that I know will pay off in time.
If you’re looking for a way to eat healthier while saving time, you should definitely check out the sponsor of this video, HelloFresh. HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery company that completely takes the hassle out of cooking by delivering healthy and easy-to-prepare recipes to your door each week. I used to hate cooking because I didn’t know what to make most days, and when I did find a recipe, I’d have to go to the store and buy a bunch of random small ingredients that I’d use once, then they’d get banished to my fridge and eventually get thrown out. But now, every order has recipes laid out for me, with everything portioned properly, so I never find myself struggling to know what to make, and I never waste food anymore. My favorite meal so far has been the maple sausage patties with, like, this potato pepper hash, but they’ve got 40 different recipes and over 100 seasonal items to choose from each week, so lots of options, lots of great food to be had. So if you do want to give HelloFresh a try, you can go to HelloFresh.com and use the code „TOGOGUYS50“ for 50% off, plus free shipping, on your first box. This is genuinely something I wish I had signed up for sooner. It’s great food, great price, delivered to your door. So if you do want to check it out, the link is down below, and I hope you guys like HelloFresh as much as I have, because it’s low-key changed my life.
