Accelerate Learning & Increase Cognitive Capacity | Dr. Tommy Wood

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There’s a much more recent study that took again older adults and randomized them across three different groups. One was like a low-intensity group. Another group basically did kind of zone 2 type work on a treadmill three times a week. And the third group did um a high-intensity interval training intervention which was the Norwegian 4x4 protocol. So 4 minutes at 85 to 95% of maximum heart rate.

They had a 3minut rest in their protocol. They did that four times over. >> That was three times a week. >> Three times a week for 6 months. That’s that’s pretty intense.

But what they showed was that that highintensity interval training group, they improved their fitness just as well as the zone 2 group, interestingly, but they had much better improvements in hypocample function and maintenance of hypocample structure and MRI scan. And they maintained that benefit for 5 years after the six-month intervention. So they worked really hard for 6 months, but that that benefit was maintained for for a really long period of time. Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based [music] tools for everyday life. I’m Andrew Huberman and I’m a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

My guest today is Dr. Tommy Wood. Dr. Tommy Wood is a medical doctor and neuroscience researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is also the chief science officer of BetterBrain, a company that provides free brain health coaching.

Tommy is an expert in neuroplasticity and human performance and how science-based protocols can be used to improve your focus, ability to learn, and skill expression. His work applies to everyone from the novice to the elite expert, and for all kinds of skills, cognitive, language skills, athletic, and creative endeavors. Today, we discuss the brain states that favor learning and importantly, how to get yourself into those states. We also discuss how to get the most from a learning session. for instance, how long that session should last, how many sessions to do per day, and perhaps most importantly, how to tune your mind and body to get better at learning.

That’s something we don’t often hear in the context of learning and neuroplasticity, that our brain circuits for focusing and learning are also capable of plasticity, meaning you can literally get better at getting better. Today, we discuss things like flow states and something called a clutch state, which is a seldom mentioned but critical brain state to accelerate learning and performance. In fact, a clutch state is the state that you want to seek to learn and perform at your best. We also discuss how different types of physical exercise from long slow cardio to brief high-intensity cardio and different forms of resistance training each open the window for distinct types of neuroplasticity and learning. So, this goes way beyond the general discussion about exercise improving your brain.

We get really granular about exactly what types of things to do to improve your brain in specific ways. As a career neuroscientist who has worked on and taught neuroplasticity for decades now, it’s rare that I encounter someone with as deep knowledge about the real science and application of learning and plasticity as Tommy has. He’s also extremely unique because he has a ton of knowledge about new science-based protocols for plasticity. And he’s also an athlete. We discuss that a little bit at the end as well.

So today you will hear a lot of information that I am confident you have not heard on this podcast or anywhere else frankly about exercise, mental training, nutrition and supplementation and much more and how you can leverage each alone and in combination to learn new skills with accelerated speed, precision and durability over time. I should also mention that Tommy recently released a new book that he wrote entitled The Stimulated Mind: Futureproof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age. It’s an excellent book if you’re interested in following up on today’s discussion and learning more about how you can make your brain better at any age. Before we begin, I’d like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public.

In keeping with that theme, today’s episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Tommy Wood. Dr. Tommy Wood, welcome.

So amazing to be here. Thanks so much for having me. >> Man, this is my favorite topic in the entire world. What is more interesting than neuroplasticity, right? The brain is so interesting, but its most interesting feature in my opinion anyway, is that it can change itself.

Essentially, that’s its core most important function. If it can’t do that, literally none of the other functions matter. You could you could argue and it’s something that we have to be able to do right until the end of our end of our lives. You have an eclectic research tapestry, right? Today we’re going to talk about neuroplasticity, what it is, what it isn’t, how to access it for men, for women, different ages, and you also are a high performance coach.

You’re also a competing natural strongman. >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh does that mean lifetime no gear?

Lifetime. Well, it’s tested. I Yeah. Lifetime no gear for me personally, but it’s a drug tested version of the strongman sport. So yeah, if you uh if you compete in natural strongman, then you you get tested.

Great. So we’ll we’ll talk about that. I’ll resist the temptation to talk about your two boxer [snorts] pups because I’m a dog lover. That’s a different episode. Neuroplasticity.

I know what it means to me. How do you conceptualize it? How do you think people should think about it in terms of wanting to learn things and not forget things? I essentially just think of it as the brain responding to inputs in order for us to then be able to better navigate and survive our environment. And that’s why I think it’s such a fundamental part of what the brain does.

And essentially every time you learn something, interact with something, remember something, the principles of neuroplasticity are engaged, right? you are making new sinapses or strengthening sinapses, weakening other synapses. A lot of people don’t realize that particularly brain development, but then also the refining of functions in the brain through neuroplasticity includes the pruning or removal of signapses. Often we think about it’s all about growth and new connections, but actually it also involves the refining or removal of of other connections that aren’t needed. That’s that’s a massive part of of brain development in the first place.

And this is a process that’s essentially continuously on ongoing and you can think of it as it primary role is so that you can navigate survive the world around you and that’s through learning skills through remembering people and things and facts. Um, and where I one of the one of the things that’s most interesting to me about neuroplasticity and the way we think about our brains over time is that I think people have uh conflated neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Mhm. [snorts] >> So when we’re thinking about brain development, we’re thinking about um then also brain function over with with with age and either cognitive decline or maintaining cognitive function. We thought that the adult brain was was fixed, right?

Um or or then it was fixed and then it lost function. And this goes all the way back to Kahal who said the adult brain is immutable, right? He told us that you got into adulthood, it finished developing and then it was kind of done. He then at other times also said that changes in the connections b